Social Science Audiobooks | Non-Fiction

If you think it’s getting harder to both make a living and make a life, economist and former secretary of labor Robert Reich agrees with you. Americans may be earning more than ever before, but we’re paying a steep price: we’re working longer, seeing our families less, and our communities are fragmenting. With the clarity and insight that are his hallmarks, Reich delineates what success has come to mean in our time. He demonstrates that although we have more choices as consumers, and investors, the choices themselves are undermining the rest of our lives. It is getting harder for people to be confident of what they will be earning next year, or even next month. At the same time, our society is splitting into socially stratified enclaves--the wealthier walled off and gated, the poorer isolated and ignored. Although the trends he discusses are powerful, they are not irreversible, and Reich makes provocative suggestions for how we might create a more balanced society and more satisfying lives. Some of his ideas may surprise you; all should spark a healthy–and essential–national debate.

Robert B. Reich (Author), Robert B. Reich (Narrator)

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Ranting Again

Dennis Miller is back, and he is Ranting Again in this hilarious compendium of wit, wisdom, and righteous outrage. This is good news for all of us who fume at the country’s lack of common sense, and seethe at the absurdity of the daily headlines. Setting his sights higher and wider than ever before, Dennis Miller is at the top of his game, unleashing his unique brand of scathing wit on anything and everything. Taking on such targets as illegal immigration, the sobriety movement, the American school system, and men who wear tight T-shirts even though they have big breasts, Miller proves that nobody is safe from his hilarious yet hard-hitting scrutiny. Showcasing Dennis Miller’s trademark blend of wide-ranging allusions, thought-provoking insights, and outrageous opinions, Ranting Again is a brilliant collection that is his sharpest and funniest yet.

Dennis Miller (Author), Dennis Miller (Narrator)

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The End of the Road

As national spokesman for the Motel 6 chain, as a commentator on National Public Radio's All Things Considered, and as creator of the nationally syndicated radio program The End of the Road, Tom Bodett has a voice familiar to millions. Now you can listen, at your pleasure, to his stories about likable, genuine, slightly wacky people who live in the little Alaska town at the end of the road. Follow the romantic misadventures of sixties throwback Tamara Dupree, vegetarian activist and New Age missionary; join Stormy Storbock and Ed Flannigan on their sightseeing tour across America by fire truck; meet local ne'er-do-well Doug McDoogan, who has a bright new future in the arts. Come to Alaska and share in the emergence of a true American humorist - funny, farcical, nostalgic, provocative, and always touching.

Tom Bodett (Author), Tom Bodett (Narrator)

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The Rants

There’s good news for those that rage at the evening news, shake their heads at Washington’s business-as-usual, or watch as politicians carom from social crisis to political crisis to economic crisis: Dennis Miller is back, and he means to shake the nation by its lapels. Miller respects no boundaries. Whether the subject is dope-addled baseball players who can no longer swing their bats, do-nothing politicians who devote their careers to creating meaningful sound bites, or the nation’s resigned acceptance of violence as a way of American life, these thematically arranged monologues are funny and angry. More significantly, they shatter the conventions of comedy by simultaneously making us laugh, think, and seethe.

Dennis Miller (Author), Dennis Miller (Narrator)

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Reviving Ophelia

Why are more American adolescent girls prey to depression, eating disorders, addictions, and suicide attempts than ever before? According to Dr. Mary Pipher, a clinical psychologist who has treated girls for more than twenty years, we live in a look-obsessed, media-saturated, "girl-poisoning" culture. Despite the advances of feminism, escalating levels of sexism and violence--from undervalued intelligence to sexual harassment in elementary school--cause girls to stifle their creative spirit and natural impulses, which, ultimately, destroys their self-esteem. Yet girls often blame themselves or their families for this "problem with no name" instead of looking at the world around them.Here, for the first time, are girls' unmuted voices from the front lines of adolescence, personal and painfully honest. By laying bare their harsh day-to-day reality, Reviving Ophelia issues a call to arms and offers parents compassion, strength, and strategies with which to revive these Ophelias' lost sense of self.From the Cassette edition.

Mary PhD Pipher, Mary Pipher, Mary Pipher, Ph.D., Phd Mary Pipher (Author), Mary PhD Pipher, Mary Pipher, Mary Pipher, Ph.D., Phd Mary Pipher (Narrator)

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Mythic Wisdom from Africa

Clyde Ford (Author), Michael Toms (Narrator)

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Life Stories: Profiles from The New Yorker

One of art's purest challenges is to translate a human being into words. The New Yorker has met this challenge more successfully and more originally than any other modern American journal. It has indelibly shaped the genre known as the Profile. Starting with light-fantastic evocations of glamorous and idiosyncratic figures of the twenties and thirties, such as Henry Luce and Isadora Duncan, and continuing to the present, with complex pictures of such contemporaries as Mikhail Baryshnikov and Richard Pryor, this collection of New Yorker Profiles presents readers with a portrait gallery of some of the most prominent figures of the twentieth century. These Profiles are literary-journalistic investigations into character and accomplishment, motive and madness, beauty and ugliness, and are unrivalled in their range, their variety of style, and their embrace of humanity. From the Trade Paperback edition.

David Remnick (Author), Alton Fitzgerald White, Amy Irving, Philip Bosco (Narrator)

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Squandering Aimlessly: My Adventures in the American Marketplace

Poor, misguided fellow. David Brancaccio, host of public radio's rambunctious and eclectic business program Marketplace, used to think the big problem with money was getting some. Didn't he understand that during a time of bounty the big problem is knowing what to do with money once you have it? It took a conversation with one of the richest guys in America to set him straight. "I think Warren Buffett's got the problem and Gates has the problem and Bloomberg's got the problem," the billionaire said. "And the problem doesn't just have to be at our level. It can be with people who have just a couple of million bucks." It was the second "just" in that sentence that made tears well up in Brancaccio's eyes. Most of us once thought the problem was getting some money. Now what? Squander: to spend or use something precious in a wasteful way. Squandering ranks even below "leaving it in a passbook savings account" on the list of the greatest personal finance sins of our age, according to Brancaccio, who hit the road to determine the right answer to the question of what to do with money. Brancaccio gets this question from Marketplace listeners all the time: What does one do with a lump sum, perhaps the proceeds from some stock options, the profit on the sale of a house, an inheritance, a bonus, a settlement, or even a modest accumulation in a savings account? A natural storyteller, Brancaccio has a clear, intelligent, and delightfully offbeat way of explaining to his listeners the complexities of business, investing, and the economy. He has access to rivers of market information that should help answer this question of what to do with money. But data do not necessarily equal wisdom, so Brancaccio hit upon the idea of venturing out on a random "walk" to acquire some street smarts. Imagining a windfall of his own and haunted by his own checkered history with money, Brancaccio embarked on a funny and irreverent personal finance pilgrimage. His travels took him from Minnesota's Mall of America to New York City's Wall Street to one of the poorest towns in the West. He encountered entrepreneurs in California, homeowners in New York, retirees in Arizona, and some folks following their lifelong dreams in Texas. A drifter in a desert offered advice. So did a U.S. secretary of the treasury. Along the way, Brancaccio was challenged by a cascade of practical and philosophical issues: If consumption drives the economy, is there something wrong with saving? Is there such a thing as a socially responsible investment? Is charity an investment? If you can't beat a Las Vegas casino, can you beat the stock market? While Brancaccio's journey was a personal one, his eye-opening adventures reveal a great deal about attitudes toward money in America at the dawn of the new century -- and they provide entertaining lessons about how best to spend, invest, and save.

David Brancaccio (Author), David Brancaccio (Narrator)

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Coming of Age: Growing Up in the Twentieth Century

"We don't know anything about the past and we don't seem to want to know it. And all the time the people who can tell us about it, make it meaningful, the real repositories of living information, are being lost." - Studs Terkel Together, these stories represent an extraordinary panorama of American life and work throughout the century and the ways in which the times have changed. Coming of Age is a compelling picture of what we have gained through "progress", and what we have lost.

Studs Terkel (Author), Allen Kathleen Hamilton, Shirley Venard, Studs Terkel (Narrator)

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Real Boys

After more than two decades of research at Harvard Medical School, clinical psychologist William Pollack concludes that our sons are in trouble. In this provocative study, as he examines the causes of this crisis, Dr. Pollack offers ways we can help boys grow up into healthy adults. Just as Mary Pipher's Reviving Ophelia (RB# 94714) offers hope for troubled adolescent girls, Real Boys is an invaluable work. An unwritten 'Boy Code' perpetuates the myths that boys are driven by testosterone and other uncontrollable forces and that boys are inherently dangerous. As a result of these beliefs, boys are taught to conceal their emotions from others, keep their distance in relationships, and be tough. Dr. Pollack's book offers healthier attitudes to replace this damaging Code. As Dr. Pollack discusses each of the myths of boyhood, he uses case studies to show how we can help boys understand and deal with such issues as anger, sexuality, peer pressure, and self-image.

William Pollack, William Pollock (Author), John McDonough (Narrator)

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There's Room For Me Here: Literacy Workshop in the Middle School

Janet Allen, Kyle Gonzalez (Author), Kate Forbes, Ruth Ann Phimister (Narrator)

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Endgame: Solving the Iraq Crisis

Ritter describes in detail the ways that Saddam tried to foil inspectors by concealing his weapons programs. He brings listeners with him inside some of Iraq's most carefully guarded sites and shows us dramatic faceoffs between U.N. inspectors and hostile Iraqi guards and officials. But Ritter criticizes the U.S. for squandering an international consensus on Iraq and trying to use the inspections process for uniquely American goals. He offers a way out of the Iraqi morass, proposing a bold and innovative solution to the crisis.

Scott Ritter (Author), Scott Ritter (Narrator)

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Social Science Audiobooks in Non-Fiction