15 to Life
How I Painted My Way to Freedom
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Narrated by:
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Scott O'Dell
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By:
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Anthony Papa
About this listen
"This tension-filled memoir by a prisoner turned activist and artist may seem familiar after Jennifer Gonnerman's NBA-nominated Life on the Outside, but unlike Gonnerman, Papa describes excessive imprisonment under harsh drug laws with the grim certainty of firsthand experience. In 1984, he rashly agreed, for $500, to deliver a package containing four and a half ounces of cocaine for a gambling acquaintance. It turned out to be a sting, and Papa was convicted and sentenced to 15 years to life. Although at first suffused with melodramatic regret, the account becomes leaner when Papa arrives at Sing Sing and describes the hazards and absurdities of the notoriously crowded, grimy prison. He found spiritual release from despair and violence through educational programs on painting, writing and law. Papa's public stature rose after a painting of his was exhibited at the Whitney Museum, and after numerous travails threatened his health and sanity, he was granted executive clemency after 12 years behind bars. Papa has since been active with the group Mothers of the Disappeared and the movement to repeal the overly harsh Rockefeller drug laws; his paintings combine surrealist overtones with hard-edged subjects often derived from the prison-industrial complex, and they reflect the material of his book memorably." (Publishers Weekly)
“Anthony Papa has written a riveting account of how he courageously painted his way to freedom from prison after unnecessarily serving twelve years. His story puts a human face on the nearly one miliion nonviolent drug offenders confined in prisons throughout the country.” (Susan Sarandon, actor/activist)
“Papa’s story gives me the chills. He’s been through so much you won’t believe it ‘till you read it.” (Jack Black, actor)
“A powerful memoir of one man’s struggle for freedom, 15 to Life tells in vivid prose the story of Anthony Papa, a painter and a casualty of the War on Drugs. This journey of a soul shows the power of art to transcend the violence of prison, and all that is possible when the human spirit refuses to be contained. Papa’s account should be required reading for New York lawmakers and all Americans who care about civil liberties.” (Sister Helen Prejean, author of Dead Man Walking)
“Papa has an astounding visual imagination. 15 to Life is more than an insider’s view of New York’s prison archipelago. It’s also a powerful statement against a war on drugs.” (New York Press)
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Intense, brutal, and informative
- By E on 07-08-15
By: Chris Blatchford
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Blood Is Black
- By: Scott Pratt
- Narrated by: Bailey Carr
- Length: 8 hrs and 24 mins
- Original Recording
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Presley Carter is a bright, hungry young defense attorney plying her trade in the areas in and around Nashville. Though she’s haunted by a horrifying event from her past, she’s achieved local renown as a savvy, resourceful lawyer adept at handling–and winning–tough cases. After being approached to file a clemency petition by a father whose son committed a gruesome double-murder, Presley reluctantly agrees to file the document, knowing full well the request has no chance of being granted. Then she receives a phone call informing her the convict’s release has been approved.
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Blood is indeed black
- By Karen B. Jinks on 11-20-22
By: Scott Pratt
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A Knock at Midnight
- A Story of Hope, Justice, and Freedom
- By: Brittany K. Barnett
- Narrated by: Karen Chilton
- Length: 13 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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Brittany K. Barnett was only a law student when she came across the case that would change her life forever - that of Sharanda Jones, single mother, business owner, and, like Brittany, Black daughter of the rural South. A victim of America’s devastating war on drugs, Sharanda had been torn away from her young daughter and was serving a life sentence without parole - for a first-time drug offense.
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Riveting Listen, Inspiring, Change Your Mind
- By elena on 11-18-20
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Cash Landing
- A Novel
- By: James Grippando
- Narrated by: Jonathan Davis
- Length: 12 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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Every week a hundred million dollars in cash arrives at Miami International Airport, shipped by German banks to the Federal Reserve. A select group of trusted workers moves the bags through customs and loads them into armored trucks.
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Good Start To The Series
- By Lia on 10-21-18
By: James Grippando
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The Savage City
- By: T. J. English
- Narrated by: Dennis Boutsikaris
- Length: 10 hrs and 18 mins
- Abridged
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In the early 1960s, uncertainty and menace gripped New York, crystallizing in a poisonous divide between a deeply corrupt, cynical, and racist police force, and an African American community buffeted by economic distress, brutality, and narcotics. On August 28, 1963 - the day Martin Luther King Jr. declared "I have a dream" on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial - two young white women were murdered in their Manhattan apartment. Dubbed the Career Girls Murders case, the crime sent ripples of fear throughout the city, as police scrambled fruitlessly for months to find the killer.
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I Highly Recommend This Book!
- By R on 05-15-13
By: T. J. English
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The Upside of Fear
- How One Man Broke the Cycle of Prison, Poverty, and Addiction
- By: Weldon Long
- Narrated by: Weldon Long
- Length: 6 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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Weldon Long knows firsthand that Maui is nicer than prison. After 13 years of federal and state incarceration, he emerged a transformed man: a powerful speaker, driven motivator, and successful trainer/entrepreneur. Long holds a BS in law and an MBA in management, despite dropping out of high school in the ninth grade.
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What’s the point?
- By Elliot king on 10-21-21
By: Weldon Long
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Becoming Ms. Burton
- From Prison to Recovery to Leading the Fight for Incarcerated Women
- By: Susan Burton, Cari Lynn
- Narrated by: Janina Edwards
- Length: 10 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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Susan Burton's world changed in an instant when her five-year-old son was killed by a van driving down their street. Consumed by grief and without access to professional help, Susan self-medicated, becoming addicted first to cocaine then to crack. As a resident of South Los Angeles, a Black community under siege in the War on Drugs, it was but a matter of time before Susan was arrested. She cycled in and out of prison for over 15 years; never was she offered therapy or treatment for addiction.
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Compelling
- By Jean on 06-18-17
By: Susan Burton, and others
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Operation Family Secrets
- How a Mobster's Son and the FBI Brought Down Chicago's Murderous Crime Family
- By: Frank Calabrese Jr., Keith Zimmerman, Kent Zimmerman, and others
- Narrated by: Todd McLaren
- Length: 10 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
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The Calabrese family of Chicago is a close-knit, middle-class, multi-generational Italian-Irish-American clan. They operate family businesses. They work day and night striving for the American Dream. All three sons forge a bond with their controlling father, Frank Sr., and their soft-spoken favorite uncle, Nick. As a boy, the oldest son, Frank Jr., realizes that his father and uncle are also "made" members of another close-knit family: the outfit.
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Riveting Listen!
- By ahippieadventure on 02-06-13
By: Frank Calabrese Jr., and others
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Picking Cotton
- Our Memoir of Injustice and Redemption
- By: Jennifer Thompson-Cannino, Erin Torneo, Ronald Cotton
- Narrated by: Richard Allen, Karen White
- Length: 7 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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Jennifer Thompson was raped at knifepoint by a man who broke into her apartment while she slept. She was able to escape and eventually identified Ronald Cotton as her attacker. Ronald insisted that she was mistaken - but Jennifer's positive identification was the compelling evidence that put him behind bars. After 11 years, Ronald was allowed to take a DNA test that proved his innocence. He was released after serving more than a decade in prison for a crime he never committed.
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Listen for the story not the writing
- By Professor Sombrero on 06-13-09
By: Jennifer Thompson-Cannino, and others
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Hell's Angel
- The Life and Times of Sonny Barger and the Hell's Angels Motorcycle Club
- By: Sonny Barger
- Narrated by: John Pruden
- Length: 7 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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Narrated by the visionary founding member, Hell's Angel provides a fascinating all-access pass to the secret world of the notorious Hell's Angels Motorcycle Club. Sonny Barger recounts the birth of the original Oakland Hell's Angels and the four turbulent decades that followed. Hell's Angel also chronicles the way the HAMC revolutionized the look of the Harley-Davidson motorcycle and built what has become a worldwide bike-riding fraternity, a beacon for freedom-seekers the world over.
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A must for any true biker
- By Chris B on 06-20-15
By: Sonny Barger
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In Contempt
- By: Christopher A. Darden, Jess Walter - contributor
- Narrated by: Christopher Darden
- Length: 2 hrs and 45 mins
- Abridged
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This number-one New York Times best seller is an unflinching look at what the television cameras could not show: behind-the-scenes meetings, the deteriorating relationships between the defense and prosecution teams, the taunting, baiting, and pushing matches between Darden and Simpson, the intimate relationship between Darden and Marcia Clark, and the candid factors behind Darden's controversial decision for Simpson to try on the infamous glove, and much more.
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Author-narrated/well-written - yet abridged
- By J.Chin on 06-28-16
By: Christopher A. Darden, and others
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Convicted
- A Crooked Cop, an Innocent Man, and an Unlikely Journey of Forgiveness and Friendship
- By: Jameel McGee, Andrew Collins, Mark Tabb
- Narrated by: Calvin Robinson, Adam Verner
- Length: 6 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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Racial tensions had long simmered in Benton Harbor, a small city on the eastern shore of Lake Michigan, before the day a White narcotics officer - more focused on arrests than justice - set his sights on an innocent Black man. But when officer Andrew Collins framed Jameel McGee for possession of crack cocaine, the surprising result was not a race riot but a transformative journey for both men.
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Wonderful book
- By Michelle B Ouellette on 06-10-21
By: Jameel McGee, and others
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Don’t Ever Get Old
- By: Daniel Friedman
- Narrated by: Nick Sullivan
- Length: 8 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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When Buck learns that an old adversary may have escaped Germany with a fortune in stolen gold, he decides to hunt down the fugitive and claim the loot. But lots of people want a piece of the stolen treasure, and Buck’s investigation quickly attracts unfriendly attention from a Mississippi loan shark, a seven-foot-tall Hasidic Jew, and a bloodthirsty maniac hell-bent on rubbing out everybody who knows anything about the stolen gold.
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It's a "Buck Schatz"!! And it's great!!
- By Byron on 07-30-13
By: Daniel Friedman
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Gangster Squad
- Covert Cops, the Mob, and the Battle for Los Angeles
- By: Paul Lieberman
- Narrated by: Robert Petkoff
- Length: 13 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
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Gangster Squad chronicles the true story of the secretive police unit that waged an anything-goes war to drive Mickey Cohen and other hoodlums from Los Angeles after WWII. In 1946, the LAPD launched the Gangster Squad with eight men who met covertly on street corners and slept with Tommy guns under their beds. But for two cops, all that mattered was nailing the strutting gangster Mickey Cohen. Sgt. Jack O’Mara was a square-jawed church usher, Sgt. Jerry Wooters a cynical maverick....
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Nothing Like the movie
- By KEITH on 02-21-13
By: Paul Lieberman