The Greater Journey: Americans in Paris

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"This detailed and riveting book from award-winning historian McCullough traces the lives of several high-profile Americansincluding Oliver Wendell Holms, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Mark Twainwho, in the 19th century, found themselves in Paris. McCullough limns the impact that Parisian sojourns had upon these travelers and contrasts their lives in France with events occurring in the United States. Co-narrator (and actor) Edward Herrmann provides a stronger narration than the author, however. While McCullough, with his deep voice, grabs listeners' attention initially, he lacks the ability to maintain that interest, as his emphasis, tone, and energy wears over time. Herrmann's ability, on the other hand, to emphasize different facts through deliberate speech and tone, while moving more quickly through less complicated material, makes listening enjoyable and easygoing"  (Publishers Weekly)

Sweet Judy Blue Eyes: My Life in Music

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"The Grammy-nominated Collins has recorded more than 40 albums and still is writing and performing today at age 71. At the height of her career, Collins knew nearly everyone associated with the folk scene, and her story is filled with just as many tales of famous acquaintances such as Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, Janis Joplin, and Joni Mitchell as there are on the singing legend herself. Her own story, however, remains truly fascinating. She was a woman of her time, embracing the sex, drugs, and rock 'n' roll that went with the job, as well as the social activism that accompanied the era. Collins, who narrates in a dreamy voice, tells her story with honesty and doesn't gloss over the dark parts, including a failed marriage, an eating disorder, alcoholism, and a troubled son. The best parts, however, are the snippets of Collins singing throughout as well as the five bonus tracks at the audiobook's end. VERDICT As Richard Farina once said, "[I]f amethysts could sing...they would sound like Judy Collins."

Public Speaking Survival Kit: Expert Training to Dazzle Your Audience (Library) ( Made for Success Collection )

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 Compact Disc

" In this self-paced audio series, two of world's top communicators share their powerful techniques to help you create and deliver a dazzling speech for any occasion. You'll learn how to think on your feet, play off your audience, and banish anxiety and stress."

Awake and Sing! ( L.A. Theatre Works Audio Theatre Collections )

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Compact Disc

" Starring Mark Ruffalo, Clifford Odets 1935 masterpiece brings to urgent life the struggles of a working-class family aspiring to the promise of the American Dream. Even as they endure the countrys worst economic nightmare, three generations of an immigrant family are crowded into a Bronx tenement, fiercely determined to stay afloat, no matter what the cost. A full-cast performance featuring: Mark Ruffalo, Jane Kaczmarek, Richard Kind, Ben Gazzara, Emily Bergl, Jonathan Hadary, Peter Kybart, Raphael Sbarge and Peter Smith." 

American Pastoral [sound recording (unabridged CD audiobook)] /

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"Symbolic of turbulent times of the 1960s, the explosion of a bomb in his own bucolic backyard sweeps away the innocence of Swede Levov, along with everything industriously created by his family over three generations in America. Unabridged. 14 CDs."

Selected as part of Joe and Zina's special AudioBook Show taped on May 30, 2013

The Nightingale's Song [sound recording (unabridged CD audiobook)]

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" Robert Timberg weaves together the lives of five well-known naval Academy graduates to reveal how the Vietnam War continues to haunt America. "This is an amazing piece of work that could make you cry over descriptions of bravery so bold and so big that you wonder how our country deserves such men. . . . It is about the soul of a nation".-(-Mike Barnicle, The Boston Globe Books.)

Selected as part of Joe and Zina's AudioBook show taped on May 30, 2013

Zoo Story: Life in the Garden of Captives [sound recording (unabridged CD audiobook)]

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"Welcome to the savage and surprising world of Zoo Story, an unprecedented account of the secret life of a zoo and its inhabitants, both animal and human. Based on six years of research, the book follows a handful of unforgettable characters at Tampa's Lowry Park Zoo: an alpha chimp with a weakness for blondes, a ferocious tiger who revels in Obsession perfume, and a brilliant but tyrannical CEO known as El Diablo Blanco. Zoo Story crackles with issues of global urgency: the shadow of extinction, humanity's role in the destruction or survival of other species. More than anything else, though, it's a dramatic and moving true story of seduction and betrayal, exile and loss, and the limits of freedom on an overcrowded planet-all framed inside one zoo reinventing itself for the twenty-first century. Thomas French, a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter, chronicles the action with vivid power: Wild elephants soaring above the Atlantic on their way to captivity. Predators circling each other in a lethal mating dance. Primates plotting the overthrow of their king. The sweeping narrative takes the listener from the African savannah to the forests of Panama and deep into the inner workings of a place some describe as a sanctuary and others condemn as a prison. All of it comes to life in the book's four-legged characters. Zoo Story shows us how these remarkable individuals live, how some die, and what their experiences reveal about the human desire to both exalt and control nature."  (Publisher Description)

Selected as part of Joe and Zina's special AudioBook Show taped on May 30, 2013