The Years of Lyndon JohnsonBy: Robert A. CaroNarrated by: Grover GardnerSeries: The Years of Lyndon Johnson, Book 2Length: 22 hrs and 8 mins The Means of Ascent takes the qualities revealed in the first volume and follows them toward their nearly inevitable conclusion. Johnson wants the United States Senate, and Caro shows a man willing…
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The Path to Power
The Passage of PowerThe Years of Lyndon Johnson, Book 4By: Robert A. CaroNarrated by: Grover GardnerSeries: The Years of Lyndon Johnson, Book 4Length: 32 hrs and 45 mins Reading The Path to Power and The Means of Ascent back to back was extraordinarily revealing. Together, they begin the story of a man consumed by the…
Alexander Hamilton
By: Ron ChernowNarrated by: Scott BrickLength: 35 hrs and 58 minsRelease date: 12-26-04Language: English Chernow’s prose is beautiful, and he makes an enormous amount of history remarkably easy to follow. I have read numerous books about this era, with Hamilton appearing significantly in many of them, so this biography did not overturn my understanding of…
The Caine Mutiny
By: Herman WoukNarrated by: Kevin PariseauLength: 26 hrs and 31 mins When I finally picked up The Caine Mutiny, a book that had sat in my library for nearly two years, I did not know what to expect. What I found was not the glory of great battles or sweeping heroics, but the claustrophobic life…
The Gulag Archipelago, Volume 1
By: Aleksandr I. SolzhenitsynNarrated by: Frederick DavidsonSeries: The Gulag Archipelago, Book 1Length: 25 hrs and 56 mins Reflecting on The Gulag Archipelago 51 years after its publication, 33 years after the fall of the Soviet Union and a century after some of the events it recounts, I find myself unexpectedly attuned to the world Solzhenitsyn…
Dune
By: Frank HerbertNarrated by: Scott Brick, Orlagh Cassidy, Euan Morton, Simon Vance, Ilyana Kadushin, Byron Jennings, David R. Gordon, Jason Culp, Kent Broadhurst, Oliver Wyman, Patricia Kilgarriff, Scott SowersSeries: Dune, Book 1, Dune Saga, Book 12Length: 21 hrs and 2 mins Ah, Dune—this intricate desert world that delves deeply into both familiar and alien ideas, weaving…
Children of Memory
By: Adrian TchaikovskyNarrated by: Mel HudsonSeries: The Children of Time Novels, Book 3Length: 13 hrs and 27 mins Ahh, yet another masterful addition to Adrian Tchaikovsky’s oeuvre. Children of Memory is a compelling exploration of consciousness and meaning, deftly bending these concepts to provoke profound reflection. Compared to Children of Ruin, with its intricate depiction…
Crime and Punishment
By: Fyodor DostoevskyTranslated by: Constance GarnettNarrated by: George GuidallLength: 25 hrs and 1 minRelease date: 10-17-00 I have had Fyodor Dostoevsky’s “Crime and Punishment” on my bookshelf for about a year and finally summoned the fortitude to engage with this monumental work. The opening chapters were relatively straightforward but also somewhat abrasive in their unflinching…
Heavier Than a Mountain
By: Olan ThorensenNarrated by: Jonathan DavisSeries: Destiny’s Crucible, Book 3Length: 21 hrs and 14 mins And this is a wonderful addition to the series. I really enjoyed the continuation of the industrialization of Caedelium and the organization of military units. This is a really fun read, partly because it’s so believable. I could see myself…
Children of Time
By: Adrian TchaikovskyNarrated by: Mel HudsonSeries: The Children of Time Novels, Book 1Length: 16 hrs and 31 mins This remains one of my favorite books, and rather than venture into something new, I found myself reaching for it once more. Although I can’t pinpoint exactly when I first read it—perhaps around 2018 or 2019 as…
The Pen and the Sword: Industrial Revolution
By: Olan ThorensenNarrated by: Jonathan DavisSeries: Destiny’s Crucible, Book 2Length: 17 hrs and 9 mins And here’s another adventure with Jozef. Unlike the first, this one had more character development, which I presume will be important later. The elements that I really enjoyed—the depiction of the industrial era in Keelan province on the island of…
Rousseau and Revolution: 1800 Century Hippies
The Story of Civilization, Book 10By: Will Durant, Ariel DurantNarrated by: Stefan RudnickiSeries: The Story of Civilization, Book 10Length: 57 hrs and 21 mins This book provides a comprehensive exploration of the 18th century, centering on the life of Jean-Jacques Rousseau and the historical environment leading up to the French Revolution. As this is a…