Friday, July 10, 2020

#503. Can't Hurt Me



Can't Hurt Me (2018/14 hours): For David Goggins, childhood was a nightmare - poverty, prejudice, and physical abuse colored his days and haunted his nights. But through self-discipline, mental toughness, and hard work, Goggins transformed himself from a depressed, overweight young man with no future into a US Armed Forces icon and one of the world's top endurance athletes. The only man in history to complete elite training as a Navy SEAL, Army Ranger, and Air Force Tactical Air Controller, he went on to set records in numerous endurance events, inspiring Outside magazine to name him The Fittest (Real) Man in America.  In Can't Hurt Me, he shares his astonishing life story and reveals that most of us tap into only 40% of our capabilities. Goggins calls this The 40% Rule, and his story illuminates a path that anyone can follow to push past pain, demolish fear, and reach their full potential.
An annotated edition of Can’t Hurt Me, offering over two hours of bonus content featuring deeper insights and never-before-told stories shared by David. Not available in other formats.

#502. Caliban's War

Caliban's War (2017/21 hours): Ganymede, breadbasket of the outer planets, a Martian marine watches as her platoon is slaughtered by a monstrous supersoldier. On Earth, a high-level politician struggles to prevent interplanetary war from reigniting. And on Venus, an alien protomolecule has overrun the planet, wreaking massive, mysterious changes and threatening to spread out into the solar system. In the vast wilderness of space, James Holden and the crew of the Rocinante have been keeping the peace for the Outer Planets Alliance. When they agree to help a scientist search war-torn Ganymede for a missing child, the future of humanity rests on whether a single ship can prevent an alien invasion that may have already begun....

Thursday, June 4, 2020

#501. Leviathan Wakes

Leviathan Wakes: The Expanse Book 1 (2017/21 hours): Two hundred years after migrating into space, mankind is in turmoil. When a reluctant ship's captain and washed-up detective find themselves involved in the case of a missing girl, what they discover brings our solar system to the brink of civil war and exposes the greatest conspiracy in human history.

Tuesday, May 19, 2020

#500. JPod


JPod (2006/11 hours): Very evil...very funny. 

A lethal joyride into today's new breed of technogeeks, Douglas Coupland's novel updates Microserfs for the age of Google. 

Ethan Jarlewski and five coworkers are bureaucratically marooned in jPod. jPod is a no-escape architectural limbo on the fringes of a massive Vancouver game design company.
The six jPodders wage daily battle against the demands of a boneheaded marketing staff, who daily torture employees with idiotic changes to already idiotic games. Meanwhile, Ethan’s personal life is shaped (or twisted) by phenomena as disparate as Hollywood, marijuana grow-ops, people-smuggling, ballroom dancing, and the rise of China. jPod's universe is amoral and shameless - and dizzyingly fast-paced. The characters are products of their era even as they're creating it.
Everybody in Ethan's life inhabits a moral gray zone. Nobody is exempt, not even his seemingly straitlaced parents or Coupland himself.

Full of word games, visual jokes, and sideways jabs, this audiobook throws a sharp, pointed lawn dart into the heart of contemporary life. jPod is Douglas Coupland at the top of his game.

Wednesday, April 29, 2020

#499. The Last Wish

The Last Wish (2008/11 hrs.): Geralt of Rivia is a witcher. A cunning sorcerer. A merciless assassin. And a cold-blooded killer. His sole purpose: to destroy the monsters that plague the world. But not everything monstrous-looking is evil, and not everything fair is good...and in every fairy tale there is a grain of truth.

Monday, April 27, 2020

#498. The Andromeda Strain


The Andromeda Strain (1969/9 hours): A military space probe, sent to collect extraterrestrial organisms from the upper atmosphere, is knocked out of orbit and falls to Earth. Twelve miles from the crash site, an inexplicable and deadly phenomenon terrorizes the residents of a sleepy desert town in Arizona, leaving only two survivors: an elderly addict and a newborn infant. The United States government is forced to mobilize Project Wildfire, a top-secret emergency response protocol. Four of the nation’s most elite biophysicists are summoned to a clandestine underground laboratory located five stories beneath the desert and fitted with an automated atomic self-destruction mechanism for cases of irremediable contamination. Under conditions of total news blackout and the utmost urgency, the scientists race to understand and contain the crisis. But the Andromeda Strain proves different from anything they’ve ever seen - and what they don’t know could not only hurt them, but lead to unprecedented worldwide catastrophe.

Friday, January 10, 2020

#497. Talking to Strangers

Talking to Strangers: What We Should Know About the People We Don't Know (2019/9 hours):
How did Fidel Castro fool the CIA for a generation? Why did Neville Chamberlain think he could trust Adolf Hitler? Why are campus sexual assaults on the rise? Do television sitcoms teach us something about the way we relate to each other that isn’t true?

While tackling these questions, Malcolm Gladwell was not solely writing a book for the page. He was also producing for the ear. In the audiobook version of Talking to Strangers, you’ll hear the voices of people he interviewed–scientists, criminologists, military psychologists. Court transcripts are brought to life with re-enactments. You actually hear the contentious arrest of Sandra Bland by the side of the road in Texas. As Gladwell revisits the deceptions of Bernie Madoff, the trial of Amanda Knox, and the suicide of Sylvia Plath, you hear directly from many of the players in these real-life tragedies. There’s even a theme song – Janelle Monae’s “Hell You Talmbout.”

Something is very wrong, Gladwell argues, with the tools and strategies we use to make sense of people we don’t know. And because we don’t know how to talk to strangers, we are inviting conflict and misunderstanding in ways that have a profound effect on our lives and our world.

#496. The Turner Diaries

The Turner Diaries (1978/11 hours): Written by William L Pierce, one of America's most prominent white nationalist leaders of the late 20th century, this novel deals with a military white uprising and revolution against the establishment, first in America and then spreading around the globe. Labelled as the "most dangerous book in America" by law-enforcement agencies, this book has served as an inspiration to at least two militant white groups, "The Order" in America and the "Order Boervolk" in South Africa, both of whom turned to violent action. This book is in the form of a diary kept by its hero, Earl Turner. Drawn into a secret white resistance army, Turner takes part in and describes large parts of the revolution which spreads across the globe and ultimately sees Israel, New York City and Washington D.C. destroyed in nuclear assaults. Often derided, but acknowledged even by its bitterest enemies as one of the most influential novels of modern times. Guaranteed to make the reader not stop until the very last page.

#495. The Testaments


The Testaments (2019/14 hours): More than 15 years after the events of The Handmaid's Tale, the theocratic regime of the Republic of Gilead maintains its grip on power, but there are signs it is beginning to rot from within. At this crucial moment, the lives of three radically different women converge, with potentially explosive results.
Two have grown up as part of the first generation to come of age in the new order. The testimonies of these two young women are joined by a third: Aunt Lydia. Her complex past and uncertain future unfold in surprising and pivotal ways.
With The Testaments, Margaret Atwood opens up the innermost workings of Gilead, as each woman is forced to come to terms with who she is, and how far she will go for what she believes.

Thursday, January 9, 2020

#494. The Caves of Steel

The Caves of Steel (1954/8 hours): A millennium into the future two advancements have altered the course of human history: the colonization of the galaxy and the creation of the positronic brain. Isaac Asimov's Robot novels chronicle the unlikely partnership between a New York City detective and a humanoid robot who must learn to work together. Like most people left behind on an over-populated Earth, New York City police detective Elijah Baley had little love for either the arrogant Spacers or their robotic companions. But when a prominent Spacer is murdered under mysterious circumstances, Baley is ordered to the Outer Worlds to help track down the killer. The relationship between Life and his Spacer superiors, who distrusted all Earthmen, was strained from the start. Then he learned that they had assigned him a partner: R. Daneel Olivaw. Worst of all was that the "R" stood for robot - and his positronic partner was made in the image and likeness of the murder victim!

Wednesday, January 1, 2020

#493. Becoming

Becoming (2018/19 hours): "... a work of deep reflection and mesmerizing storytelling, Michelle Obama invites listeners into her world, chronicling the experiences that have shaped her - from her childhood on the South Side of Chicago to her years as an executive balancing the demands of motherhood and work to her time spent at the world's most famous address. With unerring honesty and lively wit, she describes her triumphs and her disappointments, both public and private, telling her full story as she has lived it - in her own words and on her own terms. Warm, wise, and revelatory, Becoming is the deeply personal reckoning of a woman of soul and substance who has steadily defied expectations - and whose story inspires us to do the same."

Monday, November 25, 2019

#492. Inside Out

Inside Out (2019/7 hours): Famed American actress Demi Moore at last tells her own story in a surprisingly intimate and emotionally charged memoir.

Friday, November 22, 2019

#491. Snow Crash

Snow Crash (1992/17 hours): In reality, Hiro Protagonist delivers pizza for Uncle Enzo's CosaNostra Pizza Inc., but in the Metaverse he's a warrior prince. Plunging headlong into the enigma of a new computer virus that's striking down hackers everywhere, he races along the neon-lit streets on a search-and-destroy mission for the shadowy virtual villain threatening to bring about Infocalypse. Snow Crash is a mind-altering romp through a future America so bizarre, so outrageous...you'll recognize it immediately.

Tuesday, November 5, 2019

#490. The Handmaid's Tale

 The Handmaid's Tale (1985/11 hours): After a staged attack that killed the President of the United States and most of Congress, a radical political group calling itself the "Sons of Jacob", exploiting religious ideology, launched a revolution. The United States Constitution was suspended, newspapers were censored, and what was formerly the United States of America was changed drastically into a military dictatorship resembling a theonomy, known as the Republic of Gilead. 

The new regime moved quickly to consolidate its power, overtaking all other religious groups, including traditional Christian denominations; and reorganized society using a peculiar interpretation of some Old Testament ideas, and a new militarized, hierarchical model of social and religious fanaticism among its newly created social classes. Above all, the biggest change is the severe limitation of people's rights, especially those of women, making them unable to hold property or handle money, forbidding them to read or write, and depriving them of control over their own reproductive functions.

Tuesday, October 15, 2019

#489. Noble House

Noble House (1981/55 hours): Set in Hong Kong in 1963, the action of Noble House spans scarcely more than a week, but these are days of high adventure: from kidnapping and murder to financial double-dealing and natural catastrophes - fire, flood, landslide. Yet they are also days filled with all the mystery and romance of Hong Kong - the heart of Asia - rich in every trade...money, flesh, opium, power.

Monday, September 23, 2019

#488. Tai-Pan

Tai-Pan (1966/32 hours): It is the early 19th century, when European traders and adventurers first begin to penetrate the forbidding Chinese mainland. And it is in this exciting time and exotic place that a giant of an Englishman, Dirk Struan, sets out to turn the desolate island of Hong Kong into an impregnable fortress of British power - and to make himself supreme ruler: Tai-Pan!

Tuesday, June 18, 2019

#487. King Rat

 King Rat (1962/16 hours): The time is World War II. The place is a brutal prison camp deep in Japanese-occupied territory. Here, within the seething mass of humanity, one man, an American corporal, seeks dominance over both captives and captors alike. His weapons are human courage, unblinking understanding of human weaknesses, and total willingness to exploit every opportunity to enlarge his power and corrupt or destroy anyone who stands in his path.

Saturday, November 24, 2018

#486. A Higher Loyalty

A Higher Loyalty (9 hours): ...former FBI director James Comey shares his never-before-told experiences from some of the highest stakes situations of his career in the past two decades of American government, exploring what good, ethical leadership looks like and how it drives sound decisions. His journey provides an unprecedented entry into the corridors of power and a remarkable lesson in what makes an effective leader.

Mr. Comey served as director of the FBI from 2013 to 2017, appointed to the post by President Barack Obama. He previously served as US attorney for the Southern District of New York and the US deputy attorney general in the administration of President George W. Bush. From prosecuting the Mafia and Martha Stewart to helping change the Bush administration's policies on torture and electronic surveillance, overseeing the Hillary Clinton email investigation as well as ties between the Trump campaign and Russia, Comey has been involved in some of the most consequential cases and policies of recent history.

Tuesday, October 16, 2018

#485. The Forever War

 The Forever War (10 hours): When it was first published over 20 years ago, Joe Haldeman's novel won the Hugo and Nebula awards and was chosen Best Novel in several countries. Today, it is hailed a classic of science fiction that foreshadowed many of the futuristic themes of the 1990s: bionics, sensory manipulation, and time distortion. 

 William Mandella is a soldier in Earth's elite brigade. As the war against the Taurans sends him from galaxy to galaxy, he learns to use protective body shells and sophisticated weapons. He adapts to the cultures and terrains of distant outposts. But with each month in space, years are passing on Earth. Where will he call home when (and if) the Forever War ends?

Narrator George Wilson's performance conveys all the imaginative technology and human drama of The Forever War. Set against a backdrop of vivid battle scenes, this absorbing work asks provocative questions about the very nature of war.


Sunday, July 1, 2018

#484. 12 Rules for Life

12 Rules for Live: An Antidote to Chaos (16 hours): What does everyone in the modern world need to know? Renowned psychologist Jordan B. Peterson's answer to this most difficult of questions uniquely combines the hard-won truths of ancient tradition with the stunning revelations of cutting-edge scientific research.
 
What does the nervous system of the lowly lobster have to tell us about standing up straight (with our shoulders back) and about success in life? Why did ancient Egyptians worship the capacity to pay careful attention as the highest of gods? What dreadful paths do people tread when they become resentful, arrogant, and vengeful? Dr. Peterson journeys broadly, discussing discipline, freedom, adventure, and responsibility, distilling the world's wisdom into 12 practical and profound rules for life. 12 Rules for Life shatters the modern commonplaces of science, faith, and human nature while transforming and ennobling the mind and spirit of its listeners.  

Tuesday, June 26, 2018

#483. Dune

Dune (21 hours): Here is the novel that will be forever considered a triumph of the imagination. Set on the desert planet Arrakis, Dune is the story of the boy Paul Atreides, who would become the mysterious man known as Maud'dib. He would avenge the traitorous plot against his noble family and would bring to fruition humankind's most ancient and unattainable dream.

A stunning blend of adventure and mysticism, environmentalism and politics, Dune won the first Nebula Award, shared the Hugo Award, and formed the basis of what is undoubtedly the grandest epic in science fiction.

Wednesday, May 16, 2018

#482. Neverwhere


Neverwhere (14 hours): Richard Mayhew is a young man with a good heart and an ordinary life, which is changed forever when he stops to help a girl he finds bleeding on a London sidewalk. His small act of kindness propels him into a world he never dreamed existed. There are people who fall through the cracks, and Richard has become one of them. And he must learn to survive in this city of shadows and darkness, monsters and saints, murderers and angels, if he is ever to return to the London that he knew.

Thursday, April 26, 2018

#481. Never Let Me Go


Never Let Me Go (10 hours): ...a gripping mystery, a beautiful love story, and also a scathing critique of human arrogance and a moral examination of how we treat the vulnerable and different in our society. In exploring the themes of memory and the impact of the past, Ishiguro takes on the idea of a possible future to create his most moving and powerful book to date.

Sunday, April 8, 2018

#480. The Disaster Artist


The Disaster Artist: My Life inside 'The Room', the Greatest Bad Movie Ever Made (12 hours): The Disaster Artist is Greg Sestero's laugh-out-loud funny account of how Tommy Wiseau defied every law of artistry, business, and friendship to make "the Citizen Kane of bad movies" (Entertainment Weekly), which is now an international phenomenon, with Wiseau himself beloved as an oddball celebrity. Written with award-winning journalist Tom Bissell, The Disaster Artist is an inspiring tour de force, an open-hearted portrait of an enigmatic man who will improbably capture your heart.

#479. The Starfish and the Spider

 The Starfish and the Spider: The Unstoppable Power of Leaderless Organizations (6 hours): If you cut off a spider's leg, it's crippled; if you cut off its head, it dies. But if you cut off a starfish's leg, it grows a new one, and the old leg can grow into an entirely new starfish.

What's the hidden power behind the success of Wikipedia, craigslist, and Skype? What do eBay and General Electric have in common with the abolitionist and women's rights movements? What fundamental choice put General Motors and Toyota on vastly different paths? How could winning a Supreme Court case be the biggest mistake MGM could have made?

After five years of ground-breaking research, Ori Brafman and Rod Beckstrom share some unexpected answers, gripping stories, and a tapestry of unlikely connections. The Starfish and the Spider argues that organizations fall into two categories: traditional "spiders", which have a rigid hierarchy and top-down leadership, and revolutionary "starfish", which rely on the power of peer relationships.

The Starfish and the Spider explores what happens when starfish take on spiders (such as the music industry vs. Napster, Kazaa, and the P2P services that followed). It reveals how established companies and institutions, from IBM to Intuit to the U.S. government, are also learning how to incorporate starfish principles to achieve success. This audiobook explores:
  • How the Apaches fended off the powerful Spanish army for 200 years
  • The power of a simple circle
  • The importance of catalysts who have an uncanny ability to bring people together
  • How the Internet has become a breeding ground for leaderless organizations
  • How Alcoholics Anonymous has reached untold millions with only a shared ideology and without a leader
The Starfish and the Spider is that rare book that will change how you understand the world around you.

Sunday, March 11, 2018

#478. Homage to Catalonia

Homage to Catalonia (9 hours): In 1936, George Orwell went to Spain to report on the civil war and instead joined the P.O.U.M. militia to fight against the Fascists. In this now justly famous account of his experience, he describes both the bleak and the comic aspects of trench warfare on the Aragon front, the Barcelona uprising in May 1937, his nearly fatal wounding just two weeks later, and his escape from Barcelona into France after the P.O.U.M. was suppressed. As important as the story of the war itself is Orwell's analysis of why the Communist Party sabotaged the workers' revolution and branded the P.O.U.M. as Trotskyist, which provides an essential key to understanding the outcome of the war and an ironic sidelight on international Communism. It was during this period in Spain that Orwell learned for himself the nature of totalitarianism in practice, an education that laid the groundwork for his great books Animal Farm and 1984.

Thursday, February 8, 2018

#477. Fire and Fury

Fire and Fury (12 hours): With extraordinary access to the West Wing, Michael Wolff reveals what happened behind-the-scenes in the first nine months of the most controversial presidency of our time...

Wednesday, November 29, 2017

#476. Dilbert and the Way of the Weasel


Dilbert and the Way of the Weasel (3 hours): Scott Adams introduces the Weasel Zone -- the giant gray area between good moral behavior and outright criminality. It's where your coworkers, bosses, salespeople, CEOs, human resource executives, hotel clerks, home repair people, and loved ones reside.

Friday, November 24, 2017

#475. Dead Cert


Dead Cert (8 hours): For millionaire jockey Alan York, winning is a bonus. For Joe Nantwich, victory means no cushy backhanders; and for Bill Davidson, front running on strongly fancied Admiral, triumph means murder. His own.

Tuesday, November 21, 2017

#474. Nerve


Nerve (9 hours): Despair, suicide, and obsessive hatred, mixed well with humor, love, and horses, brew up into the story of a battle between one man's nerve and another man's cunning. Robert Finn, steeplechase jockey, finds himself the focus of a malicious campaign which is also afflicting his friends. He sets out to discover its source, and remove it.

Sunday, October 15, 2017

#473. What Happened


What Happened (17 hours): "In the past, for reasons I try to explain, I've often felt I had to be careful in public, like I was up on a wire without a net. Now I'm letting my guard down." (Hillary Rodham Clinton, from the introduction of What Happened)

For the first time, Hillary Rodham Clinton reveals what she was thinking and feeling during one of the most controversial and unpredictable presidential elections in history. Now free from the constraints of running, Hillary takes you inside the intense personal experience of becoming the first woman nominated for president by a major party in an election marked by rage, sexism, exhilarating highs and infuriating lows, stranger-than-fiction twists, Russian interference, and an opponent who broke all the rules. This is her most personal memoir yet.

Sunday, June 11, 2017

#472. President Me: The America That's in My Head

President Me: The America That's in My Head (6 hours): Imagine a world where New York Times best-selling author, comedian, actor, television, and podcast host Adam Carolla is the President of the United States. Can’t do it? You don’t have to! Adam has done it for you!... Carolla shares his vision for a different, better America free from big issues like big government down to small problems like hotel alarm clock placement. Running on an anti-narcissism platform, President Carolla calls for a return to the values of an earlier time when stew and casserole were on every dinner table and there were no “service dogs” on airplanes. President Me hits right at the heart of what makes our country really annoying, and offers a plan to make all of our lives, but mostly Adam’s, much better.

Thursday, June 8, 2017

#471. Factorum

Factorum (5 hours): One of Charles Bukowski's best, this beer-soaked, deliciously degenerate novel follows the wanderings of aspiring writer Henry Chinaski across World War II-era America. Deferred from military service, Chinaski travels from city to city, moving listlessly from one odd job to another, always needing money but never badly enough to keep a job. His day-to-day existence spirals into an endless litany of pathetic whores, sordid rooms, dreary embraces, and drunken brawls, as he makes his bitter, brilliant way from one drink to the next.

Wednesday, April 26, 2017

#470. The Happiness Equation: Want Nothing + Do Anything = Have Everything

The Happiness Equation (6 hours):  What's the formula for a happy life?

Neil Pasricha is a Harvard MBA, a Walmart executive, a New York Times best-selling author, and a husband and dad. After selling more than a million copies of his Book of Awesome series, he now shifts his focus from observation to application.

In The Happiness Equation, Pasricha illustrates how to want nothing, do anything, and have everything. If that sounds like a contradiction, you simply haven't unlocked the Nine Secrets to Happiness.

Saturday, April 22, 2017

#469. In Trump We Trust: E Pluribus Awesome!

In Trump We Trust (7 hours): Donald Trump isn't a politician - he's a one-man wrecking ball against our dysfunctional and corrupt establishment. We're about to see the deluxe version of the left's favorite theme: Vote for us, or we'll call you stupid. It's the working class against the smirking class.

But Ann Coulter isn't puzzled. She knows why Trump was the only one of 17 GOP contenders who captured the spirit of our time. She gets the power of addressing the pain of the silent majority and saying things the "PC Thought Police" considers unspeakable. She argues that a bull in the china shop is exactly what we need to make America great again.

Wednesday, April 19, 2017

#468. It Can't Happen Here

It Can't Happen Here (15 hours): First published in 1935, when Americans were still largely oblivious to the rise of Hitler in Europe, this prescient novel tells a cautionary tale about the fragility of democracy and offers an alarming, eerily timeless look at how fascism could take hold in America.
Doremus Jessup, a newspaper editor, is dismayed to find that many of the people he knows support presidential candidate Berzelius Windrip. The suspiciously fascist Windrip is offering to save the nation from sex, crime, welfare cheats, and a liberal press. But after Windrip wins the election, dissent soon becomes dangerous for Jessup. Windrip forcibly gains control of Congress and the Supreme Court and, with the aid of his personal paramilitary storm troopers, turns the United States into a totalitarian state.

Thursday, April 13, 2017

#467. The 10X Rule

The 10X Rule (8 hours): The 10X Rule compels you to separate yourself from everyone else in the market—and you do that by doing what others refuse to do. Stop thinking in terms of basic needs, and start aiming for abundance—in all areas of your life. The 10X Rule guides you toward the frame of mind that all successful people share. Aim ten times higher than you are right now—and if you come up short, you’ll still find yourself further along than if you had maintained your life’s current status quo.

Tuesday, April 11, 2017

#466. The Sellout

The Sellout (10 hours): A biting satire about a young man's isolated upbringing and the race trial that sends him to the Supreme Court, Paul Beatty's The Sellout showcases a comic genius at the top of his game. It challenges the sacred tenets of the United States Constitution, urban life, the civil rights movement, the father-son relationship, and the holy grail of racial equality: the black Chinese restaurant... the narrator sets out to right another wrong: Dickens has literally been removed from the map to save California from further embarrassment. Enlisting the help of the town's most famous resident - the last surviving Little Rascal, Hominy Jenkins - he initiates the most outrageous action conceivable: reinstating slavery and segregating the local high school, which lands him in the Supreme Court.

Wednesday, April 5, 2017

#465. Ham on Rye


Ham on Rye (8 hours): In what is widely hailed as the best of his many novels, Charles Bukowski details the long, lonely years of his own hardscrabble youth in the raw voice of alter ego Henry Chinaski. From a harrowingly cheerless childhood in Germany through acne-riddled high school years, and his adolescent discoveries of alcohol, women, and the Los Angeles Public Library's collection of D. H. Lawrence, Ham on Rye offers a crude, brutal, and savagely funny portrait of an outcast's coming-of-age during the desperate days of the Great Depression.

Sunday, April 2, 2017

#464. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay


The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay (9 hours): It's 1939, in New York City. Joe Kavalier, a young artist who has also been trained in the art of Houdiniesque escape, has just pulled off his greatest feat: smuggling himself out of Hitler's Prague. He's looking to make big money, fast, so that he can bring his family to freedom. His cousin, Brooklyn's own Sammy Clay, is looking for a partner in creating the heroes, stories, and art for the latest novelty to hit the American dreamscape: the comic book... written in the exhilarating prose that has led critics to compare Michael Chabon to Cheever and Nabokov. In Joe Kavalier, Chabon has created a hero for the century.

#463. The Man in the High Castle


The Man in the High Castle (10 Hours): It's America in 1962. Slavery is legal once again. The few Jews who still survive hide under assumed names. In San Francisco the I Ching is as common as the Yellow Pages. All because some 20 years earlier the United States lost a war - and is now occupied jointly by Nazi Germany and Japan. This harrowing, Hugo Award-winning novel is the work that established Philip K. Dick as an innovator in science fiction while breaking the barrier between science fiction and the serious novel of ideas. In it Dick offers a haunting vision of history as a nightmare from which it may just be possible to awake.

Friday, March 10, 2017

#462. Hot Water Music

Hot Water Music (6 hours): Hot Water Music is a collection of short stories by Charles Bukowski, published in 1983. The collection deals largely with: drinking, women, gambling, and writing. It is an important collection that establishes Bukowski's minimalist style and his thematic oeuvre.

Wednesday, March 8, 2017

#461. Rules for Radicals

Rules for Radicals: A Pragmatic Primer for Realistic Radicals (7 hours): In 1971, a hard Left, Progressive community organizer named Saul D. Alinsky, wrote a playbook of subversive tactics to empower an upcoming generation of change agents. A few notable adherents to the Alinsky method are: Bill Ayers, Bernardine Dohrn, Bill and Hillary Clinton, Frank Marshall Davis and President Barack Obama.

1. Power is not only what you have, but what the enemy thinks you have. Power is derived from 2 main sources – money and people. “Have-Nots” must build power from flesh and blood.
2. Never go outside the expertise of your people. It results in confusion, fear and retreat. Feeling secure adds to the backbone of anyone.
3. Whenever possible, go outside the expertise of the enemy. Look for ways to increase insecurity, anxiety and uncertainty.
4. Make the enemy live up to its own book of rules. If the rule is that every letter gets a reply, send 30,000 letters. You can kill them with this because no one can possibly obey all of their own rules.
5. Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon. There is no defense. It’s irrational. It’s infuriating. It also works as a key pressure point to force the enemy into concessions.
6. A good tactic is one your people enjoy. They’ll keep doing it without urging and come back to do more. They’re doing their thing, and will even suggest better ones.
7. A tactic that drags on too long becomes a drag. Don’t become old news.
8. Keep the pressure on. Never let up. Keep trying new things to keep the opposition off balance. As the opposition masters one approach, hit them from the flank with something new.
9. The threat is usually more terrifying than the thing itself. Imagination and ego can dream up many more consequences than any activist.
10. If you push a negative hard enough, it will push through and become a positive. Violence from the other side can win the public to your side because the public sympathizes with the underdog.
11. The price of a successful attack is a constructive alternative. Never let the enemy score points because you’re caught without a solution to the problem.
12. Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it. Cut off the support network and isolate the target from sympathy. Go after people and not institutions; people hurt faster than institutions.

Monday, March 6, 2017

#460. Metro 2033


Metro 2033 (20 hours): The year is 2033. The world has been reduced to rubble. Humanity is nearly extinct and the half-destroyed cities have become uninhabitable through radiation. Beyond their boundaries, they say, lie endless burned-out deserts and the remains of splintered forests. Survivors still remember the past greatness of humankind, but the last remains of civilization have already become a distant memory.
Man has handed over stewardship of the earth to new life-forms. Mutated by radiation, they are better adapted to the new world. A few score thousand survivors live on, not knowing whether they are the only ones left on earth, living in the Moscow Metro - the biggest air-raid shelter ever built. Stations have become mini-statelets, their people uniting around ideas, religions, water-filters, or the need to repulse enemy incursion.
VDNKh is the northernmost inhabited station on its line, one of the Metro's best stations and secure. But a new and terrible threat has appeared. Artyom, a young man living in VDNKh, is given the task of penetrating to the heart of the Metro to alert everyone to the danger and to get help. He holds the future of his station in his hands, the whole Metro - and maybe the whole of humanity.

Friday, March 3, 2017

#459. Red Dwarf: Better Than Life


Red Dwarf: Better Than Life (7 hours): Better Than Life finds the crew trapped in a mind-boggling computer game that is threatening their lives and safety of the ship. One by one, they enter the game to rescue each other - and one by one, they become trapped! Holly will have to use his mega brain to solve this one.

Tuesday, February 28, 2017

#458. Based on a True Story: A Memoir


Based on a True Story: A Memoir (8 hours): Wild, dangerous, and flat-out unbelievable, here is the incredible memoir of the actor, gambler, raconteur, and SNL veteran and one of the best stand-up comedians of all time.

Saturday, February 25, 2017

#457. Tropic of Cancer


Tropic of Cancer (12 hours): Henry Miller's 1934 "autobiography as novel" about the impoverished, middle-aged writer's expatriate sojourn in depression-era Paris and France. Banned in the US until 1961 for its sexual content, Tropic of Cancer has been and remains a literary classic of a unique sort. "A dirty book worth reading," Ezra Pound famously wrote, as he went on to compare it to James Joyce's Ulysses. Prominent 1930s literati — including T. S. Eliot, John Dos Passos, Aldous Huxley, and George Orwell — joined in praising this non-literary, literary work.

Wednesday, February 22, 2017

#456. The Princess Diarist


The Princess Diarist (5 hours): The Princess Diarist is Fisher's intimate and revealing recollection of what happened on one of the most famous film sets of all time - and what developed behind the scenes. And today, as she reprises her most iconic role for the latest Star Wars trilogy, Fisher also ponders the joys and insanity of celebrity and the absurdity of a life spawned by Hollywood royalty, only to be surpassed by her own outer-space royalty. Laugh-out-loud hilarious and endlessly quotable, The Princess Diarist brims with the candor and introspection of a diary while offering shrewd insight into the type of stardom that few will ever experience.

Tuesday, February 21, 2017

#455. Righteous Indignation: Excuse Me While I Save the World!



Righteous Indignation: Excuse Me While I Save the World (8 hours): Known for his network of conservative websites that draws millions of readers everyday, Andrew Breitbart has one main goal: to make sure the "liberally biased" major news outlets in this country cover all aspects of a story fairly. Breitbart is convinced that too many national stories are slanted by the news media in an unfair way. Breitbart talks about the key issues that Americans face, how he has aligned himself with the Tea Party, and how one needs to deal with the liberal news world head on. Along the way, he details his early years, working with Matt Drudge, the Huffington Post, and so on, and how Breitbart developed his unique style of launching key websites to help get the word out to conservatives all over. A rollicking and controversial read, Breitbart will certainly raise your blood pressure, one way or another.

Sunday, February 19, 2017

#454. The Three-Body Problem


 The Three-Body Problem (14 hours): Set against the backdrop of China's Cultural Revolution, a secret military project sends signals into space to establish contact with aliens. An alien civilization on the brink of destruction captures the signal and plans to invade Earth. Meanwhile, on Earth, different camps start forming, planning to either welcome the superior beings and help them or to fight against the invasion.