
Mavericks
Life Stories and Lessons of History's Most Extraordinary Misfits
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Narrated by:
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Jenny Draper
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By:
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Jenny Draper
About this listen
In her first book, popular TikTok historian J Draper uses her characteristic wit and intellect to introduce us to extraordinary figures marginalized by history, and the lessons we can learn from them.
Witty and engaging TikTok historian J.D. Draper digs out unusual stories of individuals that have shaped the world, and discovers the lessons their unique experiences can teach us.
Breaking away from history as told through the lens of kings, queens and nobles, this book instead lifts the lid on 24 fascinating stories of little-known underdogs, mavericks, trailblazers and oddballs. Through these stories you will meet characters such as:
The Chevalier d'Eon–a fencing master, spy and diplomat who came out as a woman in 18th-century London
Ellen and William Craft–a married couple who made a daring escape from slavery in the American south
Peter the Wild Boy–a child found living in the woods in Germany who was taken to the royal court in England
Caroline Herschel–the first British woman to be paid for scientific work, and a discoverer of comets
William Buckland–the man who wrote the first account of a dinosaur–yet who also ate the heart of a French king
Eleanor Rykener–a gender-bending sex worker from medieval England who spilled juicy gossip about her clients in the clergy
Juliana Popjoy–a society beauty who lived in a tree for years
Paul Robeson–athlete, singer, actor, polyglot, activist... and handsome to boot
The Rebecca Rioters–a roving crowd of Welshmen who destroyed tollbooths dressed in skirts and bonnets.
These poignant and often hilarious true stories show us that the world as we know it was built by a wider array of historical figures than we experienced in our schoolbooks.
©2025 Jenny Draper (P)2025 Watkins PublishingListeners also enjoyed...
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Dinosaurs. No other class of animals captures the hearts of both children and adults alike. Paleontologist Armin Schmitt brings us a firsthand account of the latest research on dinosaurs and their lives millions of years ago, including his spectacular global excavations and fascinating discoveries in the field. With the help of cutting-edge technology and unbelievable new finds, the age-old tale of the dinosaurs is now revitalized for the very first time, complete with astonishing illustrations by Ben Rennen that help us imagine dinosaurs like never before.
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Strong on Birds
- By Lloyd E. Peterson on 12-22-24
By: Armin Schmitt
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Lucky 666
- The Impossible Mission
- By: Bob Drury, Tom Clavin
- Narrated by: Jeremy Bobb
- Length: 9 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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From the authors of the New York Times best-selling The Heart of Everything That Is and Halsey's Typhoon comes the dramatic untold story of a daredevil bomber pilot and his misfit crew who fly their lone B-17 into the teeth of the Japanese Empire in 1943, engage in the longest dogfight in history, and change the momentum of the war in the Pacific - but not without making the ultimate sacrifice.
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A WWII Pacific Tale
- By A. L. DeWitt on 11-15-16
By: Bob Drury, and others
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Jungle of Stone
- The True Story of Two Men, Their Extraordinary Journey, and the Discovery of the Lost Civilization of the Maya
- By: William Carlsen
- Narrated by: Paul Michael Garcia
- Length: 16 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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In 1839 rumors of extraordinary yet baffling stone ruins buried within the unmapped jungles of Central America reached two of the world's most intrepid travelers. Seized by the reports, American diplomat John Lloyd Stephens and British artist Frederick Catherwood sailed together out of New York Harbor on an expedition into the forbidding rainforests of present-day Honduras, Guatemala, and Mexico. What they found would rewrite the West's understanding of human history.
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Lacking on adventure, misleading title
- By Allen on 02-23-17
By: William Carlsen
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Box Office Poison
- Hollywood's Story in a Century of Flops
- By: Tim Robey
- Narrated by: Tim Robey
- Length: 8 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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From grand follies to misunderstood masterpieces, disastrous sequels to catastrophic literary adaptations, Box Office Poison tells a hugely entertaining alternative history of Hollywood, through a century of its most notable flops. What can these films tell us about the Hollywood system, the public’s appetite–or lack of it–and the circumstances that saw such flops actually made? Away from the canon, this is the definitive take on these ill-fated, but essential celluloid failures.
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So biting and snarky !
- By Katie K on 07-04-25
By: Tim Robey
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Franklin & Washington
- The Founding Partnership
- By: Edward J. Larson
- Narrated by: Andrew Tell
- Length: 11 hrs
- Unabridged
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Today the United States is the world’s great superpower, and yet we also wrestle with the government Franklin and Washington created more than two centuries ago - the power of the executive branch, the principle of checks and balances, the electoral college - as well as the wounds of their compromise over slavery. Now, as the founding institutions appear under new stress, it is time to understand their origins through the fresh lens of Larson’s Franklin & Washington, a major addition to the literature of the founding era.
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Two together, written about at same time
- By fair & balanced on 03-28-21
By: Edward J. Larson
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The Habsburgs
- To Rule the World
- By: Martyn Rady
- Narrated by: Simon Boughey
- Length: 14 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
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The definitive history of a powerful family dynasty who dominated Europe for centuries - from their rise to power to their eventual downfall.
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An Excellent and Interesting History
- By Darrel Bishop on 09-14-20
By: Martyn Rady
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The Great Halifax Explosion
- A World War I Story of Treachery, Tragedy, and Extraordinary Heroism
- By: John U. Bacon
- Narrated by: Johnny Heller
- Length: 10 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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From best-selling author John U. Bacon, a gripping narrative history of the largest manmade detonation prior to Hiroshima. On Monday, December 3, 1917, the French freighter SS Mont-Blanc set sail from Brooklyn carrying the largest cache of explosives ever loaded onto a ship, including 2,300 tons of picric acid, an unstable, poisonous chemical more powerful than TNT.
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Too much hostility towards Americans
- By bigdaddyKT on 12-14-19
By: John U. Bacon
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Con/Artist
- The Life and Crimes of the World's Greatest Art Forger
- By: Tony Tetro, Giampiero Ambrosi
- Narrated by: Richard Ferrone, Tony Tetro, Giampiero Ambrosi
- Length: 8 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
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The art world is a much dirtier, nastier business than you might expect. Tony Tetro, one of the most renowned art forgers in history, will make you question every masterpiece you’ve ever seen in a museum, gallery, or private collection. Tetro’s “Rembrandts,” “Caravaggios,” “Miros,” and hundreds of other works now hang on walls around the globe.
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Incredibly interesting!
- By Carole Wooten on 12-07-22
By: Tony Tetro, and others
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Firepower
- How Weapons Shaped Warfare
- By: Paul Lockhart
- Narrated by: Brian Nishii
- Length: 21 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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The history of warfare cannot be fully understood without considering the technology of killing. In Firepower, acclaimed historian Paul Lockhart tells the story of the evolution of weaponry and how it transformed not only the conduct of warfare, but also the very structure of power in the West, from the Renaissance to the dawn of the atomic era.
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Needs More Guns Less Political Opinion
- By Jeb on 10-20-22
By: Paul Lockhart
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Off the Edge
- Flat Earthers, Conspiracy Culture, and Why People Will Believe Anything
- By: Kelly Weill
- Narrated by: Xe Sands
- Length: 7 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
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Since 2015, there has been a spectacular boom in a centuries-old delusion: that the earth is flat. More and more people believe that we all live on a pancake-shaped planet, capped by a solid dome and ringed by an impossible wall of ice. How? Why? In Off the Edge, journalist Kelly Weill draws a direct line from today’s conspiratorial moment, brimming not just with Flat Earthers but also anti-vaxxers and QAnon followers, back to the early days of Flat Earth theory in the 1830s.
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Unconvincing
- By Bruce Cline on 05-24-22
By: Kelly Weill
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Ask a Historian
- 50 Surprising Answers to Things You Always Wanted to Know
- By: Greg Jenner
- Narrated by: Dan Schreiber, Greg Jenner, Janina Ramirez, and others
- Length: 11 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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Responding to fifty genuine questions from the public, Greg Jenner takes you on an entertaining tour through history from the Stone Age to the Swinging Sixties, revealing the best and most surprising stories, facts and historical characters from the past. From ancient joke books, African empires and the invention of meringues, to mummies, mirrors and menstrual pads—Ask A Historian is a deliciously amusing and informative smorgasbord of historical curiosities.
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best bonus content ever!
- By Matthew K Wendelken on 03-24-22
By: Greg Jenner
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The Viking Age: New Perspectives on History and Culture
- By: Jennifer Paxton, The Great Courses
- Narrated by: Jennifer Paxton
- Length: 6 hrs and 37 mins
- Original Recording
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The Vikings evoke striking images of horned helmets, battle axes, and merciless coastal raids. Remembered for their shocking brutality and impressive naval prowess, these marauding pirates from the North have inspired poetry, fantasy novels, plays, symphonies, and even comic book heroes over the last 12 centuries. But do any of these enduring tropes reflect reality? Who were the Vikings really? What do we know about the period that bears their name? Explore these questions and more in The Viking Age, a 12-lecture course that corrects the record on a transformative period in world history.
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Up to date with new info
- By Amy Cassidy on 01-05-25
By: Jennifer Paxton, and others
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Pseudoscience
- An Amusing History of Crackpot Ideas and Why We Love Them
- By: Lydia Kang MD, Nate Pedersen
- Narrated by: Hillary Huber
- Length: 9 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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From the easily disproved to the wildly speculative, to straight-up hucksterism, Pseudoscience is a romp through much more than bad science—it’s a light-hearted look into why we insist on believing in things such as Big Foot, astrology, and the existence of aliens. Did you know, for example, that you can tell a person’s future by touching their butt? Rumpology. It’s a thing, but not really. Or that Stanley Kubrick made a fake moon landing film for the US government? Except he didn’t. Or that spontaneous human combustion is real? It ain’t, but it can be explained scientifically.
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Same old stories…waste of time to read.
- By Kelly on 05-20-25
By: Lydia Kang MD, and others
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First Friends
- The Powerful, Unsung (and Unelected) People Who Shaped Our Presidents
- By: Gary Ginsberg
- Narrated by: Robert Petkoff
- Length: 15 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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In the best-selling tradition of The Presidents Club and Presidential Courage, White House history as told through the stories of the best friends and closest confidants of American presidents.
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An intuitive romp through history.
- By Douglas on 07-12-21
By: Gary Ginsberg
I had not heard of more than half these people, but I loved every story.
Funny and interesting
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excellent writing
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Interesting, Unusual Stories
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A great addition to the great stories told by J. Draper
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The chapter about Lady Mary Wortley Montagu was especially inspiring—I loved how she challenged norms and did what most women would have deemed unfathomable for their time. In a society where women and other disadvantaged communities are still navigating their roles and standing, her story offers powerful life lessons and inspiration.
A great cherry on top is that it is one of the better self-narrated audio books where the author does a very good job at the narration both in terms of speed, pronunciation, intonation and narration. Had a blast learning about the commoner and non-white mavericks in British history and being a non-British person, all stories were quite new to me and helped me also get an idea about the British society at different points from not just a royalty/aristocracy point of view but how regular people might have experienced life.
Detailed research into very interesting lives you probably never heard of
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Love this book
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Performance of the Author was captivating
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Interesting stories!!
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The narration is great!!
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I gasped, I laughed, I cried…ABSOLUTELY worth the read!!!
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