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Breathing Fire
- Female Inmate Firefighters on the Front Lines of California's Wildfires
- Narrated by: Frankie Corzo, Jaime Lowe
- Length: 9 hrs and 10 mins
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Publisher's summary
This program features a bonus clip with archival recordings from several of the inmate firefighters and the author.
A dramatic, revelatory account of the female inmate firefighters who battle California wildfires.
Shawna was overcome by the claustrophobia, the heat, the smoke, the fire, all just down the canyon and up the ravine. She was feeling the adrenaline, but also the terror of doing something for the first time. She knew how to run with a backpack; they had trained her physically. But that’s not training for flames. That’s not live fire.
California’s fire season gets hotter, longer, and more extreme every year - fire season is now year-round. Of the thousands of firefighters who battle California’s blazes every year, roughly 30 percent of the on-the-ground wildland crews are inmates earning a dollar an hour. Approximately 200 of those firefighters are women serving on all-female crews.
In Breathing Fire, Jaime Lowe expands on her revelatory work for The New York Times Magazine. She has spent years getting to know dozens of women who have participated in the fire camp program and spoken to captains, family and friends, correctional officers, and camp commanders. The result is a rare, illuminating look at how the fire camps actually operate - a story that encompasses California’s underlying catastrophes of climate change, economic disparity, and historical injustice, but also draws on deeply personal histories, relationships, desires, frustrations, and the emotional and physical intensity of firefighting.
Lowe’s reporting is a groundbreaking investigation of the prison system, and an intimate portrayal of the women of California’s Correctional Camps who put their lives on the line, while imprisoned, to save a state in peril.
A Macmillan Audio production from MCD
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Riveting Listen, Inspiring, Change Your Mind
- By elena on 11-18-20
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Twentynine Palms
- A True Story of Murder, Marines, and the Mojave
- By: Deanne Stillman
- Narrated by: Jay Snyder
- Length: 9 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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August 2, 1991, Twentynine Palms, California: a troubled Marine who has recently returned from the Gulf War savagely murders two young girls. One was about to turn 16, the other 21. Exquisitely and inexorably, Deanne Stillman uses this tragedy as a prism through which she examines a rootless culture of fatherless families, shattered dreams, and relentless violence. She also traces the family histories of each murder victim back for generations, in one case to the Donner Party and the other to a shack in the Philippines.
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Ugh...
- By Ashley on 11-03-20
By: Deanne Stillman
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Pure Land
- A True Story of Three Lives, Three Cultures and the Search for Heaven on Earth
- By: Annette McGivney
- Narrated by: Christine Marshall
- Length: 12 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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Pure Land is the story of the most brutal murder in the history of the Grand Canyon and how McGivney's quest to investigate the victim's life and death wound up guiding the author through her own life-threatening crisis. On this journey stretching from the southern tip of Japan to the bottom of Grand Canyon, and into the ugliest aspects of human behavior, Pure Land offers proof of the healing power of nature and of the resiliency of the human spirit.
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Compelling story about Tomomi, too much personal
- By Chester Chellman on 02-02-18
By: Annette McGivney
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The Undocumented Americans
- By: Karla Cornejo Villavicencio
- Narrated by: Karla Cornejo Villavicencio
- Length: 4 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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Writer Karla Cornejo Villavicencio was on DACA when she decided to write about being undocumented for the first time using her own name. It was right after the election of 2016, the day she realized the story she'd tried to steer clear of was the only one she wanted to tell. So she wrote her immigration lawyer's phone number on her hand in Sharpie and embarked on a trip across the country to tell the stories of her fellow undocumented immigrants—and to find the hidden key to her own.
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Raw, heartbreaking - we can do better by others
- By RapaciousReader on 04-11-20
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Invisible Child
- Poverty, Survival & Hope in an American City
- By: Andrea Elliott
- Narrated by: Adenrele Ojo
- Length: 21 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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Andrea Elliott follows eight dramatic years in the life of Dasani, a girl whose imagination is as soaring as the skyscrapers near her Brooklyn shelter. In this sweeping narrative, Elliott weaves the story of Dasani’s childhood with the history of her ancestors, tracing their passage from slavery to the Great Migration north. As Dasani comes of age, New York City’s homeless crisis has exploded, deepening the chasm between rich and poor. She must guide her siblings through a world riddled by hunger, violence, racism, drug addiction, and the threat of foster care.
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Narration is completely over the top
- By Heather on 10-14-21
By: Andrea Elliott
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Legally Dead
- A Father and Son Bound by Murder
- By: Kevin Flynn, Rebecca Lavoie
- Narrated by: Aven Shore
- Length: 8 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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Attorney Seth Bader and his wife, Vicki, moved to New Hampshire in 1992. Three tumultuous years later, their marriage ended and left Vicki a broken woman, driven to the edge as Seth seduced their teenage son, Joey, into a violent plot to kill her in cold blood. What followed was one of the most bizarre and harrowing crime stories in New Hampshire history.
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Everyone is good at something…
- By Vickijeanne on 06-06-21
By: Kevin Flynn, and others
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Four Feet Tall & Rising
- A Memoir
- By: Shorty Rossi, S. J. Hodges
- Narrated by: Shorty Rossi
- Length: 6 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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Luigi Francis "Shorty" Rossi, the tough-talking, fedora-wearing star of Animal Planet's hit show Pit Boss, may stand only four feet tall, but that hasn't stopped him from living large, becoming a successful businessman and an outspoken advocate for pit bulls, the most misunderstood dog breed in the world.
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Great book, truly good person
- By Anonymous on 03-03-12
By: Shorty Rossi, 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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Home Baked
- My Mom, Marijuana, and the Stoning of San Francisco
- By: Alia Volz
- Narrated by: Alia Volz
- Length: 14 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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During the '70s in San Francisco, Alia's mother ran the underground Sticky Fingers Brownies, delivering upwards of 10,000 illegal marijuana edibles per month throughout the circus-like atmosphere of a city in the throes of major change. She exchanged psychic readings with Alia's future father, and thereafter had a partner in business and life. Exhilarating, laugh-out-loud funny, and heartbreaking, Home Baked celebrates an eccentric and remarkable extended family, taking us through love, loss, and finding home.
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Everything and more
- By Becky Love on 10-20-24
By: Alia Volz
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Full Body Burden
- Growing Up in the Nuclear Shadow of Rocky Flats
- By: Kristen Iversen
- Narrated by: Kirsten Potter, Kristen Iversen
- Length: 13 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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Kristen Iversen grew up in a small Colorado town close to Rocky Flats, a secret nuclear weapons plant once designated "the most contaminated site in America." Full Body Burden is the story of a childhood and adolescence in the shadow of the Cold War, in a landscape at once startlingly beautiful and--unknown to those who lived there--tainted with invisible yet deadly particles of plutonium.
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A story that no one else wanted to tell.
- By Carol on 01-28-13
By: Kristen Iversen
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Zeitoun
- By: Dave Eggers
- Narrated by: Firdous Bamji
- Length: 10 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
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When HurricaneKatrina struck New Orleans, Abdulrahman Zeitoun - a prosperous Syrian-American and father of four - chose to stay through the storm to protect his house and contracting business. In the eerie days after the storm, he traveled the flooded streets in a secondhand canoe, passing on supplies and rescuing those he could. A week later, on September 6, 2005, Zeitoun abruptly disappeared.
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Something bold, ebullient, yet quiet
- By Darwin8u on 10-08-13
By: Dave Eggers
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Lay Your Sleeping Head
- The Henry Rios Mysteries, Book 1
- By: Michael Nava
- Narrated by: Thom Rivera
- Length: 7 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
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A completely revised edition of the first Henry Rios mystery, The Little Death, Lay Your Sleeping Head introduces Michael Nava’s singular protagonist, gay Latino criminal defense lawyer Henry Rios. Rios, beset by personal and professional problems, begins a passionate affair with the black sheep heir to a great California fortune who tells Rios an improbable tale of murder and sexual predation in his wealthy family. When the young man is found dead of an apparent drug overdose, Rios begins an investigation that ultimately reveals much more than murder.
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Loved It
- By Leah Brock on 06-20-20
By: Michael Nava
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Trejo
- My Life of Crime, Redemption, and Hollywood
- By: Danny Trejo, Donal Logue
- Narrated by: Danny Trejo, Donal Logue
- Length: 13 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
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On screen, Danny Trejo the actor is a baddie who has been killed at least a hundred times. He’s been shot, stabbed, hanged, chopped up, squished by an elevator, and once, was even melted into a bloody goo. Off screen, he’s a hero beloved by recovery communities and obsessed fans alike. But the real Danny Trejo is much more complicated than the legend.
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The best book ever!
- By Nicolas Rocha on 07-08-21
By: Danny Trejo, and others
What listeners say about Breathing Fire
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Karen Belcher
- 05-05-22
A Hard Listen
The narration was not great and detracted from the story and information. Very monotone. However, this book contains some eye opening information about the history of California and the prison system. Maybe try the book instead.
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- Stan
- 08-21-22
Informative, captivating and pertinent.
Fire is now a way of life in California. Everything can change in an instant and the loss of lives and way of life forever devastating. So grateful for all firefighters, but especially the prisoners who give there all and go unrewarded.
Only one star for performance because the quality of the recording was so poor. This was no fault of the reader who did an outstanding job. Audible you need to fix this!
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- Lucy Galajyan
- 01-16-22
A must read/listen!
Wether you live in California or not, this is a book filled with stories that you must hear! We live in a strange world and we need to do all we can to both recognize and fight for the rights for those who fights to save us!
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1 person found this helpful
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- Carolyn S
- 06-02-22
Excellent
I lived in California for awhile and had no idea of this program. These women are unsung heroes for the state and the author does a spectacular job revealing the humanity of the individuals who are risking their lives while incarcerated. When I looked up the news articles about the accident, I was similarly incensed to see how the press focused on the idea that the beautiful young woman who died was a incarcerated rather than that she received the full honors of a firefighter when she was laid to rest. Thanks Jaime Lowe for another wonderful book.
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1 person found this helpful
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- V. A. Sell
- 01-31-22
So good I'm sharing it/recommending it to friends,
So good I'm sharing it with a friend who's been a wild fire fire fighter and others who have been incarcerated.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Manifesta
- 09-14-21
A deeply human and widely historic story
Jaime Lowe probes deeply into the stories of the women inmate firefighters— what their lives were like, how they ended up in jail, what they learned fighting fires and what had happened to them since the death of one of their colleagues. You will come to respect and care for these women, as the author clearly does. But the book also cast a wide net to give the stories context: California's history of women firefighters, collusion with slavery and slaveholders, incarceration and the climate crisis. An excellent book all around.
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- christy
- 11-30-21
Sober and personal look at the California inmate fire experience
I really enjoyed this inside look at the California penal system and the use of what is a close relative to slave labor for a critical service to the state in the form of fire fighting. The current and former inmates profiled in the book are portrayed with respect, and often framed in their own words. History of labor and prison service was fascinating particularly as someone who thinks of California as being very progressive, there is an dark underbelly it comes to prison labor.
My only complaint was that the editing of the narration indicated sections of the book, in fact sometimes as small as a few words or a sentence, we’re recorded at different times under different conditions, and the quality of the audio and volume fluctuated in very distracting manners. I wish the audio had been more consistent.
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- Sophie
- 08-11-21
Heartbreaking story of the plight of the incarcerated and women in general
This book is a must read for any Californian, anyone that cares about our communities and our state, as well as those that live in it. Truly heartbreaking to hear about these women who have been down on their luck be abused and traumatized while incarcerated instead of receiving the therapy and rehabilitation they need. Even worse to hear how their troubles follow them after they have done their time, where it is hard or impossible to find jobs because of their records. This is a great way to renew the call for prison reform. These women and their male counterparts put their lives on the line and don’t even get paid a firefighters wage to do it. You need to read this book.
4 stars on performance because there were points where the audio was obviously spliced in that were a bit jarring, otherwise author was great.
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2 people found this helpful
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- cougargrl7
- 08-05-21
What's up with this audio?
I'm rather annoyed with Breathing Fire so far. I'm still listening to it, so for now I've rated it a 3, but this audio issue needs to be mentioned.
The story is interesting, but they have the author and another woman listed as readers. One of them is doing most of the reading, I guess, but she either really changes her voice for a sentence or two (or even just a few words) for no apparent reason or the other woman reads those lines. It's not to act like she's talking as someone else to emphasize that person's words...at one point she was just describing what one of the women was wearing. It's jarring and totally unnecessary. It's almost like they recorded it before the author finished the physical book then went back and dubbed in parts that she added on a final edit or something...then the narrator forgot what voice she used, couldn't do that voice again for some reason, or they couldn't get her and used someone else. Glad I used a credit and didn't actually buy it.
08/08/21: Okay, I finished the book...there are a couple of other issues besides all the weird voice changes that continued throughout the book. At one point the author wrote about the first ever woman firefighter from NY, Molly Williams...she's talking about having a scarf wound around her head. The narrator pronounced it like a wound on the body! WTH?! And the narrator is an American actress (which makes the bizarre voice cuts all the weirder), so it's not a matter of how someone from another country might pronounce a word differently. Then in the epilogue, the narrator says, "On Friday, September 11th, 2022, Governor Newsom..." Really?! 2022?!?! I have no idea if it's written that way in the physical book, but that is a glaring mistake since it's currently 2021! The one reason it's nice to have the Audible version is you get to hear snippets of the interviews with the actual women at the end.
The narration issues aside, this is a really good book that highlights more changes are needed in the criminal justice and prison systems, including preparing inmates for release. Paying the inmates so little for doing such a dangerous job is insulting to say the least. And to train them and for many give them a career they want to continue once released then give them little to no opportunity to compete for those jobs is just ridiculous. As one person said, if we can give them all these tools that could be potential weapons and send them out to work, maybe they shouldn't have been in prison in the first place. It's interesting that when the first women's prison was establish, it had a female board and the focus was on training the women for careers once they were out. As soon as it was transferred under the control of the men's board, that disappeared. Of course with private for-profit prisons, rehabilitation and training will never happen. Things have to change in this country.
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2 people found this helpful