Social Science Audiobooks | Non-Fiction

Close to Shore: The Terrifying Shark Attacks of 1916

Combining rich historical detail and a harrowing, pulse-pounding narrative, Close to Shore brilliantly re-creates the summer of 1916, when a rogue Great White shark attacked swimmers along the New Jersey shore, triggering mass hysteria and launching the most extensive shark hunt in history. During the summer before the United States entered World War I, when ocean swimming was just becoming popular and luxurious Jersey Shore resorts were thriving as a chic playland for an opulent yet still innocent era's new leisure class, Americans were abruptly introduced to the terror of sharks. In July 1916 a lone Great White left its usual deep-ocean habitat and headed in the direction of the New Jersey shoreline. There, near the towns of Beach Haven and Spring Lake-and, incredibly, a farming community eleven miles inland-the most ferocious and unpredictable of predators began a deadly rampage: the first shark attacks on swimmers in U.S. history. For Americans celebrating an astoundingly prosperous epoch much like our own, fueled by the wizardry of revolutionary inventions, the arrival of this violent predator symbolized the limits of mankind's power against nature. Interweaving a vivid portrait of the era and meticulously drawn characters with chilling accounts of the shark's five attacks and the frenzied hunt that ensued, Michael Capuzzo has created a nonfiction historical thriller with the texture of Ragtime and the tension of Jaws. From the unnerving inevitability of the first attack on the esteemed son of a prosperous Philadelphia physician to the spine-tingling moment when a farm boy swimming in Matawan Creek feels the sandpaper-like skin of the passing shark, Close to Shore is an undeniably gripping saga. Heightening the drama are stories of the resulting panic in the citizenry, press and politicians, and of colorful personalities such as Herman Oelrichs, a flamboyant millionaire who made a bet that a shark was no match for a man (and set out to prove it); Museum of Natural History ichthyologist John Treadwell Nichols, faced with the challenge of stopping a mythic sea creature about which little was known; and, most memorable, the rogue Great White itself moving through a world that couldn't conceive of either its destructive power or its moral right to destroy. Scrupulously researched and superbly written, Close to Shore brings to life a breathtaking, pivotal moment in American history. Masterfully written and suffused with fascinating period detail and insights into the science and behavior of sharks, Close to Shore recounts a breathtaking, pivotal moment in American history with startling immediacy.From the Trade Paperback edition.

Michael Capuzzo (Author), Len Cariou (Narrator)

Audiobook

Peter Mayle's Provence: Included a Year in Provence and Toujours Provence

When Peter Mayle and his wife traded England's long, gray winters and damp summers for life in southern France, they entered an enchanting, wonderful, sometimes bewildering world. Now, share their adventures, pleasures, and frustrations: the joys and occasional hazards of wining and dining in France, taking part in goat races, attending a Pavorotti concert under the stars -- and much more. Meet Provence's unique characters: a wary truffle hunter, a gourmet in a track suit, the wise and crafty Massot -- and many more. Funny, touching, endearing -- Peter Mayle's Provence proves the adage that while you may not be able to escape from it all, you sure can have fun trying.

Peter Mayle (Author), Patrick Macnee, Peter Mayle (Narrator)

Audiobook

Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal

Fast Food Nation - the groundbreaking work of investigation and cultural history that has changed the way America thinks about the way it eats - and spent nearly four months on the New York Times bestseller list - now available on cassette! Are we what we eat? To a degree both engrossing and alarming, the story of fast food is the story of postwar America. Though created by a handful of mavericks, the fast food industry has triggered the homogenization of our society. Fast food has hastened the malling of our landscape, widened the chasm between rich and poor, fueled an epidemic of obesity, and propelling the juggernaut of American cultural imperialism abroad. That's a lengthy list of charges, but Eric Schlosser makes them stick with an artful mix of first-rate reportage, wry wit, and careful reasoning. Schlosser's myth-shattering survey stretches from the California subdivisions where the business was born to the industrial corridor along the New Jersey Turnpike where many of fast food's flavors are concocted. Along the way, he unearths a trove of fascinating, unsettling truths - from the unholy alliance between fast food and Hollywood to the seismic changes the industry has wrought in food production, popular culture, even real estate. He also uncovers the fast food chains' efforts to reel in the youngest, most susceptible consumers even while they hone their institutionalized exploitation of teenagers and minorities. Schlosser then turns a critical eye toward the hot topic of globalization - a phenomenon launched by fast food.

Eric Schlosser (Author), Rick Adamson (Narrator)

Audiobook

The Vagina Monologues

A landmark in women's empowerment-as relevant as ever after a year marked by unprecedented political protest-that honors female sexuality in all its complexity. 'I was worried about vaginas. I was worried about what we think about vaginas, and even more worried that we don't think about them. . . . So I decided to talk to women about their vaginas, to do vagina interviews, which became vagina monologues. I talked with over two hundred women. I talked to old women, young women, married women, single women, lesbians, college professors, actors, corporate professionals, sex workers, African American women, Hispanic women, Asian American women, Native American women, Caucasian women, Jewish women. At first women were reluctant to talk. They were a little shy. But once they got going, you couldn't stop them.' So begins Eve Ensler's hilarious, eye-opening tour into the last frontier, the forbidden zone at the heart of every woman. Adapted from the award-winning one-woman show that's rocked audiences around the world, this groundbreaking book gives voice to a chorus of lusty, outrageous, poignant, and thoroughly human stories, transforming the question mark hovering over the female anatomy into a permanent victory sign. With laughter and compassion, Ensler transports her audiences to a world we've never dared to know, guaranteeing that no one who reads The Vagina Monologues will ever look at a woman's body the same way again. Praise for The Vagina Monologues "Probably the most important piece of political theater of the last decade."-The New York Times "This play changed the world. Seeing it changed my soul. Performing in it changed my life. I am forever indebted to Eve Ensler and the transformative legacy of this play."-Kerry Washington "Spellbinding, funny, and almost unbearably moving . . . both a work of art and an incisive piece of cultural history, a poem and a polemic, a performance and a balm and a benediction."-Variety "Often wrenching, frequently riotous. . . . Ensler is an impassioned wit."-Los Angeles Times "Extraordinary . . . a compelling rhapsody of the female essence."-Chicago Tribune

Eve Ensler (Author), Eve Ensler (Narrator)

Audiobook

Flu

Gina Kolata (Author), Gina Kolata (Narrator)

Audiobook

Bobos in Paradise: The New Upper Class and How They Got There

It used to be pretty easy to distinguish between the bourgeois world of capitalism and the bohemian counterculture. The bourgeois worked for corporations, wore gray, and went to church. The bohemians were artists and intellectuals. Bohemians championed the values of the liberated 1960s; the bourgeois were the enterprising yuppies of the 1980s. But now the bohemian and the bourgeois are all mixed up, as David Brooks explains in this brilliant description of upscale culture in America. It is hard to tell an espresso-sipping professor from a cappuccino-gulping banker. Laugh and sob as you read about the information age economy's new dominant class. Marvel at their attitudes toward morality, sex, work, and lifestyle, and at how the members of this new elite have combined the values of the countercultural sixties with those of the achieving eighties. These are the people who set the tone for society today, for you. They are bourgeois bohemians: Bobos. Are you a Bobo? - Do you believe that spending $15,000 on a media center is vulgar, but that spending $15,000 on a slate shower stall is a sign that you are at one with the Zenlike rhythms of nature? - Does your newly renovated kitchen look like an aircraft hangar with plumbing? Did you select your new refrigerator on the grounds that mere freezing isn't cold enough? - Would you spend a little more for socially conscious toothpaste -- the kind that doesn't actually kill germs, it just asks them to leave? - Do you work for one of those hip, visionary software companies where everybody comes to work in hiking boots and glacier glasses, as if a 400-foot wall of ice were about to come sliding through the parking lot? - Do you think your educational credentials are just as good as those of the shimmering couples on the New York Times weddings page? If you answered yes to any of those questions, you are probably a member of today's new upper class. Even if you didn't, you'd still better pay attention, because these Bobos define our age. Their hybrid culture is the atmosphere we breathe. Their status codes govern social life, and their moral codes govern ethics and influence our politics. Bobos in Paradise is a witty and serious look at the cultural consequences of the information age and a penetrating description of how we live now.

David Brooks (Author), David Brooks (Narrator)

Audiobook

A Man's Journey to Simple Abundance

"The understanding, reassurance, and guidance offered by SIMPLE ABUNDANCE have helped millions of women discover what Sarah Ban Breathnach calls their "authentic self." Ever since SIMPLE ABUNDANCE was first published, Sarah has been deluged by requests from readers to explore a man's journey. But as a woman, she didn't feel she could investigate the issues crucial to men as thoughtfully or as thoroughly as she did for women. But the requests for such a book increased. So in collaboration with Michael Segell, a former Esquire magazine columnist and author of STANDUP GUY: MASCULINITY THAT WORKS (Villard), Sarah has devised A MAN'S JOURNEY TO SIMPLE ABUNDANCE, which explores the four major interests of a man's life: work, love, sex, and play. Similar in scope to SIMPLE ABUNDANCE but different in format and execution, A MAN'S JOURNEY TO SIMPLE ABUNDANCE will parallel SIMPLE ABUNDANCE in subtle but distinct ways. Instead of being a daybook of meditations, A MAN'S JOURNEY will be a series of 52 essays, one for each week. SIMPLE ABUNDANCE featured a single voice; A MAN'S JOURNEY will have 50 separate voices. SIMPLE ABUNDANCE offers specific exhortations to change, along with recommendations on how to accomplish it; A MAN'S JOURNEY will be less prescriptive; it.offers a path to authentic success by examples, both positive and negative, provided by its contributors. The book will be divided into three sections -- Departures, Crossroads, and Destinations -- and will subtly mimic SIMPLE ABUNDANCE in its structure but will not be as deliberately prescriptive as SIMPLE ABUNDANCE. Some of the topics addressed in A MAN'S JOURNEY TO SIMPLE ABUNDANCE will be: Success, Risk, Play, Friendship, Sex, Heroes, Money , Love, Responsibility, Drive, Bonds, Grief

Sarah Ban Breathnach (Author), Murphy Guyer (Narrator)

Audiobook

The Coalwood Way

It’s fall, 1959, and Homer "Sonny" Hickam and his fellow Rocket Boys are in their senior year at Big Creek High, launching handbuilt rockets that soar thousands of feet into the West Virginia sky. But in a season traditionally marked by celebrations of the spirit, Coalwood finds itself at a painful crossroads. The strains can be felt within the Hickam home, where a beleaguered Homer Sr. is resorting to a daring but risky plan to keep the mine alive, and his wife Elsie is feeling increasingly isolated from both her family and the townspeople. And Sonny, despite a blossoming relationship with a local girl whose dreams are as big as his, finds his own mood repeatedly darkened by an unexplainable sadness. Eager to rally the town’s spirits and make her son’s final holiday season at home a memorable one, Elsie enlists Sonny and the Rocket Boys’ aid in making the Coalwood Christmas Pageant the best ever. But trouble at the mine and the arrival of a beautiful young outsider threaten to tear the community apart when it most needs to come together. And when disaster strikes at home, and Elsie’s beloved pet squirrel escapes under his watch, Sonny realizes that helping his town and redeeming himself in his mother’s eyes may be a bigger-and more rewarding-challenge than he has ever faced. The result is pure storytelling magic- a tale of small-town parades and big-hearted preachers, the timeless love of families and unforgettable adventures of boyhood friends-that could only come from the man who brought the world Rocket Boys.

Homer Hickam (Author), David Lansbury (Narrator)

Audiobook

The Great Shame : And the Triumph of the Irish in the English-Speaking World

Thomas Keneally, the Booker Prize-winning author of Schindler's List, is universally praised for crafting smooth narratives from authentic historical events. With The Great Shame, he turns his insightful eye toward the Irish struggle through the nineteenth century. In sharp contrast to much of Europe, Ireland was a terrible place to be during the 1800s. Many of the nation's finest people set sail for America and Canada. Others were forcibly exiled to Australia for committing crimes as minor as shoplifting. And approximately one million perished when a widespread potato fungus fueled a devastating famine. But the Irish survived-on their homeland and spanning the globe-making profound contributions to the world. Epic in scope, this account captures the humanity of these events and ultimately emerges as a message of hope and glory. Keneally, an Australian with Irish bloodties, powerfully examines many shattered lives-including those of his own relatives. Narrator John McDonough brings a spirit to this extraordinary book that will not soon be forgotten.

Thomas Keneally (Author), John McDonough (Narrator)

Audiobook

Martin Luther King, Jr., on Leadership: Inspiration and Wisdom for Challenging Times

The best-selling author of The Founding Fathers on Leadership takes an inspiring look at what it takes to lead in challenging times. Using lessons culled from Dr. King's written words and speeches, Phillips gives practical advice for leading in life, family matters, and business. Martin Luther King, Jr. provided inspired leadership during one of the most difficult times in American history. His success as a leader can be broken down into a few basic principles: preparing to lead by listening to others; guiding a movement by encouraging creative, flexible viewpoints; inspiring action by working with people; and ensuring future success by emphasizing a hopeful, compassionate dream. An indispensable guide to all, Martin Luther King, Jr. on Leadership shows that truly effective leaders avoid coercion by rooting their success in an understanding of others. Nelson Runger's narration moves effortlessly between King's inspiring words and Phillips' practical advice.

Donald T. Phillips (Author), Nelson Runger (Narrator)

Audiobook

You Go Girl! Winning the Woman's Way

Girls' athletic participation in school and community sports programs is skyrocketing. Girls now comprise 33 percent of all high school athletes, representing a dramatic increase from four percent who participated in 1971, the year before the enactment of Title IX. You Go, Girl! is a collection of first person insights, thoughts, and stories from successful women in the world of sports. Athletes, coaches, and sports executives talk about their lives, their dreams, their frustrations, and disappointments, as well as their victories and passions, practice habits, and perspectives. Their stories will inspire, teach, motivate, encourage, and challenge any reader, male or female. Among the women who have contributed their personal anecdotes and insights are: Mia Hamm (soccer); Gabrielle Reece (beach volleyball); Marion Jones (sprinter and long jumper); Kerri Strug (gymnastics); Chris Evert (tennis); Nancy Lopez (golf); Picabo Street (Olympic gold medal skier) and many others. Most of today's young women went through school after the 1972 passage of title IX: the same cannot be said of their mothers. This book provides a powerful opportunity to close that gap.

Charlie Jones, Kim Doren (Author), Matilda Novak (Narrator)

Audiobook

Actual Innocence

Extraordinarily powerful stories of ordinary people locked up for crimes they did not commit, and how they were freed against great odds. A nightmare from a thousand B-movies: a horrible crime is committed in your neighborhood, and the police knock at your door. A witness swears you are the perpetrator; you have no alibi, and no one believes your protestations of innocence. You’re convicted, sentenced to hard time in maximum security, or even death row, where you await the executioner’s needle. Tragically, this is no movie script but reality for hundreds of American citizens. Our criminal justice system is broken, and people from all walks of life have been destroyed by its failures. But science and a group of incredibly dedicated crusaders are working to repair the damage. In the last ten years, DNA testing has uncovered stone-cold proof that sixty-five completely innocent people have been sent to prison and death row. But even in cases where there is physical evidence, the criminal justice system frees prisoners only after a torturous legal process. Incredibly, according to many trial judges, "actual innocence" is not grounds for release from prison. At the Innocence Project, Barry Scheck and Peter Neufeld have helped to free thirty-seven wrongly convicted people, and have taken up the cause of hundreds more. Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist Jim Dwyer has been covering innocence cases for a decade. In Actual Innocence, Scheck, Neufeld, and Dwyer relate the harrowing stories of ten innocent men–convicted by sloppy police work, corrupt prosecutors, jailhouse snitches, mistaken eyewitnesses, and other all-too-common flaws of the trial system–and tell of the heroic efforts to free them. Intense, startling, and utterly compelling, Actual Innocence is a passionate and fascinating journey through the looking glass of the American criminal justice system.

Barry Scheck, Jim Dwyer, Peter Neufeld (Author), Michael Boatman (Narrator)

Audiobook

Social Science Audiobooks in Non-Fiction