History audiobooks

The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid

By: Bill Bryson

Narrated by: Bill Bryson

Length: 7 hours 38 minutes

Abridged: No

BONUS FEATURE: Exclusive interview with the author.

From one of the most beloved and bestselling authors in the English language, a vivid, nostalgic and utterly hilarious memoir of growing up in the middle of the United States in the middle of the last century. A book that delivers on the promise that it is “laugh-out-loud funny.”

Some say that... Read more

My Father, My President - Abridged

By: Doro Bush Koch

Narrated by: Doro Bush Koch

Length: 5 hours 41 minutes

Abridged: Yes

Revised and updated with six new chapters and many new photographs following his death at age 94, this is the definitive account of George H.W. Bush's life and career written by his only daughter with his full cooperation.

Much happened to George H.W. Bush and the country since the initial publication of My Father, My President: His nemesis,... Read more

Redemption

By: Nicholas Lemann

Narrated by: Michael Prichard

Length: 8 hours 55 minutes

Abridged: No

A century after Appomattox, the civil rights movement won full citizenship for black Americans in the South. It should not have been necessary: by 1870 those rights were set in the Constitution. This is the story of the terrorist campaign that took them away.



Nicholas Lemann opens his extraordinary new book with a riveting account of the horrific... Read more

Once Upon a Town

By: Bob Greene

Narrated by: Fritz Weaver

Length: 6 hours 5 minutes

Abridged: No

During World War II, American soldiers from every city and walk of life rolled through North Platte, Nebraska on troop trains, en route to Europe and the Pacific. The tiny town transformed its modest railroad depot into the North Platte Canteen -- a place where soldiers could enjoy coffee, music, home-cooked food, magazines, and friendly... Read more

Abundance: A Novel of Marie Antoinette

By: Sena Jeter Naslund

Narrated by: Susanna Burney

Length: 11 hours 55 minutes

Abridged: No

Marie Antoinette was a child of fourteen when her mother, the Empress of Austria, arranged for her to leave her family and her country to become the wife of the fifteen-year-old Dauphin, the future King of France. Coming of age in the most public of arenas, she warmly embraces her adopted nation and its citizens. She shows her new husband... Read more

Mellon

By: David Cannadine

Narrated by: John H. Mayer

Length: 36 hours 2 minutes

Abridged: No

A landmark work from one of the preeminent historians of our time: the first published biography of Andrew W. Mellon, the American colossus who bestrode the worlds of industry, government, and philanthropy, leaving his transformative stamp on each.

Following a boyhood in nineteenth-century Pittsburgh, Andrew Mellon overcame painful shyness to... Read more

Blood and Thunder - Abridged

By: Hampton Sides

Narrated by: Don Leslie

Length: 6 hours 28 minutes

Abridged: Yes

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • From the author of Ghost Soldiers comes an eye-opening history of the American conquest of the West—"a story full of authority and color, truth and prophecy" (The New York Times Book Review).

In the summer of 1846, the Army of the West marched through Santa Fe, en route to invade and occupy the Western territories claimed... Read more

Mellon - Abridged

By: David Cannadine

Narrated by: John H. Mayer

Length: 10 hours 21 minutes

Abridged: Yes

A landmark work from one of the preeminent historians of our time: the first published biography of Andrew W. Mellon, the American colossus who bestrode the worlds of industry, government, and philanthropy, leaving his transformative stamp on each.
Following a boyhood in nineteenth-century Pittsburgh, Andrew Mellon overcame painful shyness to... Read more

Six Frigates - Abridged

By: Ian W. Toll

Narrated by: Stephen Lang

Length: 7 hours 12 minutes

Abridged: Yes

Before the ink was dry on the Constitution of the United States, the establishment of a permanent military had become the most divisive issue facing the young republic. Would a standing army be the thin end of dictatorship? Would a navy protect American commerce from the vicious depredations of the Barbary pirates, or would it drain the treasury... Read more

Tagebuch eines Hugenotten

By: Jean Migault

Narrated by: Uwe Neumann

Length: 1 hour 8 minutes

Abridged: No

Dieses packende Zeitdokument schildert drastisch, was Verfolgung und Vertreibung im 17. Jahrhundert bedeutete. Der Hugenotte Jean Migault bekommt die Repressionen, die schon vor der Aufhebung des Ediktes von Nantes beginnen, immer mehr zu spüren, und er muß um sein Leben und das seiner elf Kinder bangen - bis sich endlich die Möglichkeit zur... Read more

The Punishment of Virtue

By: Sarah Chayes

Narrated by: Renée Raudman

Length: 14 hours 57 minutes

Abridged: No

A National Public Radio reporter covering the last stand of the Taliban in their home base of Kandahar in Afghanistan's southern borderland, Sarah Chayes became deeply immersed in the unfolding drama of the attempt to rebuild a broken nation at the crossroads of the world's destiny. Her NPR tour up in early 2002, she left reporting to help turn... Read more

State of Denial - Abridged

By: Bob Woodward

Narrated by: Boyd Gaines

Length: 7 hours 16 minutes

Abridged: Yes

THE DETAILED, INSIDE STORY OF A WAR-TORN WHITE HOUSE

Bob Woodward examines how the Bush administration avoided telling the truth about Iraq to the public, to the Congress, and often to themselves in State of Denial. Woodward's third book on President Bush is a sweeping narrative from the first days George W. Bush thought seriously about... Read more

Sailing from Byzantium

By: Colin Wells

Narrated by: Lloyd James

Length: 9 hours 10 minutes

Abridged: No

A gripping intellectual adventure story, Sailing from Byzantium sweeps you from the deserts of Arabia to the dark forests of northern Russia, from the colorful towns of Renaissance Italy to the final moments of a millennial city under siege....



Byzantium: the successor of Greece and Rome, this magnificent empire bridged the ancient and modern... Read more

Diana

By: Sarah Bradford

Narrated by: Katherine Kellgren

Length: 15 hours 15 minutes

Abridged: No

From The New York Times-bestselling author of America's Queen and Elizabeth- the definitive biography of Diana, Princess of Wales.

Unabridged CDs - 11 CDs, 14 hours Read more

The Blind Side - Abridged

By: Michael Lewis

Narrated by: Grover Gardner

Length: 5 hours 33 minutes

Abridged: Yes

In football, as in life, the value we place on people changes with the rules of the games they play.
When we first meet the young man at the center of this extraordinary and moving story, he is one of thirteen children by a mother addicted to crack; he does not know his real name, his father, his birthday, or any of the things a child might learn... Read more

The Detonators

By: Chad Millman

Narrated by: Lloyd James

Length: 10 hours 2 minutes

Abridged: No

In 1916, while the Allied and Central forces waged war in Europe, a group of German saboteurs blew up Black Tom Island, a spit of land in New York Harbor within earshot of downtown Manhattan. The subsequent hail of missiles and gunpowder devastated much of lower Manhattan. The attack-so massive that as far away as Maryland people could feel the... Read more

The Greatest Story Ever Sold

By: Frank Rich

Narrated by: Grover Gardner

Length: 9 hours 43 minutes

Abridged: No

New York Times columnist Frank Rich reviews the trajectory of fictions spun by the Bush administration from 9/11 to Hurricane Katrina, revealing the most brilliant spin campaign ever conducted.

Unabridged CDs - 8 CDs, 10 hours Read more

My American Journey - Abridged

By: Colin L. Powell & Joseph E. Persico

Narrated by: Colin L. Powell

Length: 3 hours 41 minutes

Abridged: Yes

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • “A great American success story . . . an endearing and well-written book.”—The New York Times Book Review

Colin Powell is the embodiment of the American dream. He was born in Harlem to immigrant parents from Jamaica. He knew the rough life of the streets. He overcame a barely average start at school. Then he joined... Read more

The Echoing Green - Abridged

By: Joshua Prager

Narrated by: Joshua Prager

Length: 5 hours 52 minutes

Abridged: Yes

The Untold Story Behind The Shot Heard Round The World

The 1951 regular baseball season was as good as over. The Brooklyn Dodgers led the New York Giants by three runs with just three outs to go in their third and final playoff game. Not once in the 278 preceding playoff and World Series games had a team overcome a three-run deficit in the... Read more

The Confession - Abridged

By: James E. McGreevey

Narrated by: James E. McGreevey

Length: 5 hours 35 minutes

Abridged: Yes

In August 2004, Governor James E. McGreevey of New Jersey made history when he declared ""My truth is that I am a gay American,"" and announced his resignation. Now, in this extraordinarily candid memoir, McGreevey shares his story of a life of ambition, moral compromise, and redemption. From childhood, McGreevey lived a kind of idealized... Read more

The Wonga Coup

By: Adam Roberts

Narrated by: Simon Vance

Length: 8 hours 33 minutes

Abridged: No

Equatorial Guinea is a tiny country roughly the size of the state of Maryland. Humid, jungle covered, and rife with unpleasant diseases, natives call it Devil Island. Its president in 2004, Obiang Nguema, had been accused of cannibalism, belief in witchcraft, mass murder, billion-dollar corruption, and general rule by terror. With so little to... Read more

Marie Antoinette

By: Antonia Fraser

Narrated by: Donada Peters

Length: 20 hours 29 minutes

Abridged: No

The national bestseller from the acclaimed author of The Wives of Henry VIII.  France’s beleaguered queen, Marie Antoinette, wrongly accused of uttering the infamous “Let them eat cake,” was the subject of ridicule and curiosity even before her death; she has since been the object of debate and speculation and the fascination so often accorded... Read more

The Immortal Game

By: David Shenk

Narrated by: John H. Mayer

Length: 8 hours 6 minutes

Abridged: No

A surprising, charming, and ever-fascinating history of the seemingly simple game that has had a profound effect on societies the world over.

Why has one game, alone among the thousands of games invented and played throughout human history, not only survived but thrived within every culture it has touched? What is it about its thirty-two... Read more

Mountains of the Pharaohs

By: Zahi Hawass

Narrated by: Simon Vance

Length: 6 hours 14 minutes

Abridged: No

An unprecedented account of one of civilization's greatest achievements.



The great pyramids of Giza have intrigued humanity for thousands of years. Questions about the construction and the purpose of these majestic monuments have existed since the middle period of ancient Egyptian civilization; in the sixth century B.C., Herodotus was the first... Read more