-
The Wooden Bazooka
- Narrated by: Dannul Dailey
- Length: 15 hrs and 5 mins
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Buy for $24.95
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
Publisher's summary
This autobiography, The Wooden Bazooka, is a story of manifold drama too vivid, improbable, and intensely personal to have been conjured up by a novelist.
From orphanage to battlefront to prison camp to board room and beyond, Karl Heinz Johannsmeier spins a fast-paced narrative of incredible span and trajectory, a testimony to the power of optimism and tenacity to outwit death, overcome defeat, and engineer triumph. Few individuals have proven so dramatically that the American Dream of success is indeed alive and well.
About the Author
Karl Heinz Johannsmeier is a successful Silicon Valley entrepreneur and venture capitalist. He currently lives, works, and paints in San Francisco, where he recently exhibited over 20 modern (abstract) paintings at the Academy of Art gallery. A catalog of his paintings is available.
Mr. Johannsmeier has also been profiled and interviewed on German television stations such as ZDF. The German translation of his autobiography, Neun Leben sind night genug, appeared in bookstores in September 1998.
Listeners also enjoyed...
-
In Order to Live
- A North Korean Girl's Journey to Freedom
- By: Yeonmi Park
- Narrated by: Eji Kim
- Length: 9 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In In Order to Live, Yeonmi Park shines a light not just into the darkest corners of life in North Korea, describing the deprivation and deception she endured and which millions of North Korean people continue to endure to this day, but also onto her own most painful and difficult memories. She tells with bravery and dignity for the first time the story of how she and her mother were betrayed and sold into sexual slavery in China and forced to suffer terrible psychological and physical hardship before they finally made their way to Seoul, South Korea - and to freedom.
-
-
Wow. What a story!
- By Jfm on 02-01-16
By: Yeonmi Park
-
The Girl with Seven Names
- A North Korean Defector’s Story
- By: Hyeonseo Lee, David John
- Narrated by: Josie Dunn
- Length: 10 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
As a child growing up in North Korea, Hyeonseo Lee was one of millions trapped by a secretive and brutal communist regime. Her home on the border with China gave her some exposure to the world beyond the confines of the Hermit Kingdom and, as the famine of the 1990s struck, she began to wonder, question and realise that she had been brainwashed her entire life. Given the repression, poverty and starvation she witnessed surely her country could not be, as she had been told, 'the best on the planet'?
-
-
Did not like narrator
- By Linda H. Andreae on 10-09-19
By: Hyeonseo Lee, and others
-
A River in Darkness
- One Man's Escape from North Korea
- By: Masaji Ishikawa, Risa Kobayashi - translator, Martin Brown - translator
- Narrated by: Brian Nishii
- Length: 5 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Half-Korean, half-Japanese, Masaji Ishikawa has spent his whole life feeling like a man without a country. This feeling only deepened when his family moved from Japan to North Korea when Ishikawa was just thirteen years old, and unwittingly became members of the lowest social caste. His father, himself a Korean national, was lured to the new Communist country by promises of abundant work, education for his children, and a higher station in society. But the reality of their new life was far from utopian.
-
-
Awful! And I don't mean the book . . .
- By DJW on 01-03-18
By: Masaji Ishikawa, and others
-
Nothing to Envy
- Ordinary Lives in North Korea
- By: Barbara Demick
- Narrated by: Karen White
- Length: 12 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Barbara Demick's Nothing to Envy follows the lives of six North Koreans over fifteen years - a chaotic period that saw the death of Kim Il-sung and the unchallenged rise to power of his son, Kim Jong-il, and the devastation of a far-ranging famine that killed one-fifth of the population. Taking us into a landscape never before seen, Demick brings to life what it means to be an average Korean citizen, living under the most repressive totalitarian regime today.
-
-
The man who wants to be GOD
- By Gohar on 05-08-10
By: Barbara Demick
-
The Girls of Atomic City
- The Untold Story of the Women Who Helped Win World War II
- By: Denise Kiernan
- Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell
- Length: 12 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
At the height of World War II, Oak Ridge, Tennessee, was home to 75,000 residents, consuming more electricity than New York City. But to most of the world, the town did not exist. Thousands of civilians - many of them young women from small towns across the South - were recruited to this secret city, enticed by solid wages and the promise of war-ending work. Kept very much in the dark, few would ever guess the true nature of the tasks they performed each day in the hulking factories in the middle of the Appalachian Mountains.
-
-
Important story of this secret city
- By CBlox on 11-14-13
By: Denise Kiernan
-
My Life So Far
- By: Jane Fonda
- Narrated by: Jane Fonda
- Length: 21 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
She is one of the most recognizable women of our time. America knows Jane Fonda as an actress and an activist, a feminist and a wife, a workout guru and a role model. Now, in this extraordinary memoir, Fonda reveals that she is so much more. From her youth among Hollywood's elite and her early film career to the challenges and triumphs of her life today, Jane Fonda reveals intimate details and universal truths.
-
-
GREAT, GREAT, GREAT!!!!
- By Ludimila on 06-29-13
By: Jane Fonda
-
In Order to Live
- A North Korean Girl's Journey to Freedom
- By: Yeonmi Park
- Narrated by: Eji Kim
- Length: 9 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In In Order to Live, Yeonmi Park shines a light not just into the darkest corners of life in North Korea, describing the deprivation and deception she endured and which millions of North Korean people continue to endure to this day, but also onto her own most painful and difficult memories. She tells with bravery and dignity for the first time the story of how she and her mother were betrayed and sold into sexual slavery in China and forced to suffer terrible psychological and physical hardship before they finally made their way to Seoul, South Korea - and to freedom.
-
-
Wow. What a story!
- By Jfm on 02-01-16
By: Yeonmi Park
-
The Girl with Seven Names
- A North Korean Defector’s Story
- By: Hyeonseo Lee, David John
- Narrated by: Josie Dunn
- Length: 10 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
As a child growing up in North Korea, Hyeonseo Lee was one of millions trapped by a secretive and brutal communist regime. Her home on the border with China gave her some exposure to the world beyond the confines of the Hermit Kingdom and, as the famine of the 1990s struck, she began to wonder, question and realise that she had been brainwashed her entire life. Given the repression, poverty and starvation she witnessed surely her country could not be, as she had been told, 'the best on the planet'?
-
-
Did not like narrator
- By Linda H. Andreae on 10-09-19
By: Hyeonseo Lee, and others
-
A River in Darkness
- One Man's Escape from North Korea
- By: Masaji Ishikawa, Risa Kobayashi - translator, Martin Brown - translator
- Narrated by: Brian Nishii
- Length: 5 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Half-Korean, half-Japanese, Masaji Ishikawa has spent his whole life feeling like a man without a country. This feeling only deepened when his family moved from Japan to North Korea when Ishikawa was just thirteen years old, and unwittingly became members of the lowest social caste. His father, himself a Korean national, was lured to the new Communist country by promises of abundant work, education for his children, and a higher station in society. But the reality of their new life was far from utopian.
-
-
Awful! And I don't mean the book . . .
- By DJW on 01-03-18
By: Masaji Ishikawa, and others
-
Nothing to Envy
- Ordinary Lives in North Korea
- By: Barbara Demick
- Narrated by: Karen White
- Length: 12 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Barbara Demick's Nothing to Envy follows the lives of six North Koreans over fifteen years - a chaotic period that saw the death of Kim Il-sung and the unchallenged rise to power of his son, Kim Jong-il, and the devastation of a far-ranging famine that killed one-fifth of the population. Taking us into a landscape never before seen, Demick brings to life what it means to be an average Korean citizen, living under the most repressive totalitarian regime today.
-
-
The man who wants to be GOD
- By Gohar on 05-08-10
By: Barbara Demick
-
The Girls of Atomic City
- The Untold Story of the Women Who Helped Win World War II
- By: Denise Kiernan
- Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell
- Length: 12 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
At the height of World War II, Oak Ridge, Tennessee, was home to 75,000 residents, consuming more electricity than New York City. But to most of the world, the town did not exist. Thousands of civilians - many of them young women from small towns across the South - were recruited to this secret city, enticed by solid wages and the promise of war-ending work. Kept very much in the dark, few would ever guess the true nature of the tasks they performed each day in the hulking factories in the middle of the Appalachian Mountains.
-
-
Important story of this secret city
- By CBlox on 11-14-13
By: Denise Kiernan
-
My Life So Far
- By: Jane Fonda
- Narrated by: Jane Fonda
- Length: 21 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
She is one of the most recognizable women of our time. America knows Jane Fonda as an actress and an activist, a feminist and a wife, a workout guru and a role model. Now, in this extraordinary memoir, Fonda reveals that she is so much more. From her youth among Hollywood's elite and her early film career to the challenges and triumphs of her life today, Jane Fonda reveals intimate details and universal truths.
-
-
GREAT, GREAT, GREAT!!!!
- By Ludimila on 06-29-13
By: Jane Fonda
-
Violeta
- A Novel
- By: Isabel Allende, Frances Riddle
- Narrated by: Yareli Arizmendi
- Length: 11 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Violeta comes into the world on a stormy day in 1920, the first girl in a family with five boisterous sons. From the start, her life is marked by extraordinary events, for the ripples of the Great War are still being felt, even as the Spanish flu arrives on the shores of her South American homeland almost at the moment of her birth.
-
-
Not my favorite....
- By Pat Brett on 02-14-22
By: Isabel Allende, and others
-
Lion
- By: Saroo Brierley, Larry Buttrose
- Narrated by: Vikas Adam
- Length: 7 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
At only five years old, Saroo Brierley got lost on a train in India. Unable to read or write or recall the name of his hometown or even his own last name, he survived alone for weeks on the rough streets of Calcutta before ultimately being transferred to an agency and adopted by a couple in Australia. Despite his gratitude, Brierley always wondered about his origins. Eventually, with the advent of Google Earth, he had the opportunity to look for the needle in a haystack he once called home.
-
-
Listen on higher speed
- By Dom on 04-06-17
By: Saroo Brierley, and others
-
Along the Way: The Journey of a Father and Son
- By: Martin Sheen, Emilio Estevez, Hope Edelman
- Narrated by: Martin Sheen, Emilio Estevez
- Length: 13 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this remarkable dual memoir, film legend Martin Sheen and accomplished actor/filmmaker Emilio Estevez recount their lives as father and son. In alternating chapters—and in voices that are as eloquent as they are different—they narrate stories spanning more than 50 years of family history, and reflect on their journeys into two different kinds of faith.
-
-
Hartwarming and Captivating but Fix the Audio!
- By CyndiLooWho on 05-24-12
By: Martin Sheen, and others
-
A Thousand Miles to Freedom
- My Escape from North Korea
- By: Sebastien Falletti, Eunsun Kim
- Narrated by: Emily Woo Zeller
- Length: 5 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Eunsun Kim was born in North Korea, one of the most secretive and oppressive countries in the modern world. As a child, Eunsun loved her country...despite her school field trips to public executions, daily self-criticism sessions, and the increasing gnaw of hunger as the countrywide famine escalated. By the time she was 11 years old, Eunsun's father and grandparents had died of starvation, and Eunsun too was in danger of starving. Finally her mother decided to escape North Korea with Eunsun and her sister.
-
-
Not Much New Here, but Courage and Hope to Spare
- By Gillian on 03-25-16
By: Sebastien Falletti, and others
-
Walk Through Walls
- A Memoir
- By: Marina Abramovic
- Narrated by: Marina Abramovic
- Length: 14 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 2010 more than 750,000 people stood in line at Marina Abramović's MoMA retrospective for the chance to sit across from her and communicate with her nonverbally in an unprecedented durational performance that lasted more than 700 hours. This celebration of nearly 50 years of groundbreaking performance art demonstrated once again that Marina Abramović is truly a force of nature.
-
-
Fascinating read
- By V. Ledovsky on 11-20-16
By: Marina Abramovic
-
Secondhand Time
- The Last of the Soviets
- By: Svetlana Alexievich, Bela Shayevich - translator
- Narrated by: Amanda Carlin, Mark Bramhall, Cassandra Campbell, and others
- Length: 22 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When the Swedish Academy awarded Svetlana Alexievich the Nobel Prize, it cited her for inventing "a new kind of literary genre", describing her work as "a history of emotions - a history of the soul". Alexievich's distinctive documentary style, combining extended individual monologues with a collage of voices, records the stories of ordinary women and men who are rarely given the opportunity to speak, whose experiences are often lost in the official histories of the nation.
-
-
The Heart, Soul & Iron Fist Of Russia
- By Sara on 02-22-17
By: Svetlana Alexievich, and others
-
Lily's Promise
- Holding On to Hope Through Auschwitz and Beyond—A Story for All Generations
- By: Lily Ebert, Dov Forman
- Narrated by: Charles HRH The Prince of Wales, Lily Ebert, Dov Forman, and others
- Length: 8 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
On Yom Kippur, 1944, fighting to stay alive as a prisoner in Auschwitz, Lily Ebert made a promise to herself. She would survive the hell she was in and tell the world her story, for everyone who couldn’t. Now, at ninety-eight, this remarkable woman—and TikTok sensation, thanks to the help of her eighteen-year-old great-grandson—fulfills that vow, relaying the details of her harrowing experiences with candor, charm, and an overflowing heart.
-
-
Narration is everything
- By S. Rosen on 06-02-22
By: Lily Ebert, and others
-
Where the Wind Leads
- A Refugee Family's Miraculous Story of Loss, Rescue, and Redemption
- By: Vinh Chung
- Narrated by: Josh Aaron
- Length: 10 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Vinh Chung was born in South Vietnam, just eight months after it fell to the communists in 1975. His family was wealthy, controlling a rice-milling empire worth millions; but within months of the communist takeover, the Chungs lost everything and were reduced to abject poverty. Knowing that their children would have no future under the new government, the Chungs decided to flee the country. In 1979, they joined the legendary “boat people” and sailed into the South China Sea, despite knowing that an estimated two hundred thousand of their countrymen had already perished at the hands of brutal pirates and violent seas.
-
-
Refugees from Vietnam
- By Justicepirate on 06-22-18
By: Vinh Chung
-
Hocus Pocus
- By: Kurt Vonnegut
- Narrated by: LJ Ganser
- Length: 8 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Eugene Debs Hartke describes an odyssey from college professor to prison inmate to prison warden back again to prisoner in another of Vonnegut's bitter satirical explorations of how and where (and why) the American dream begins to die. Employing his characteristic narrative device - a retrospective diary in which the protagonist retraces his life at its end, a desperate and disconnected series of events here in Hocus Pocus show Vonnegut with his mask off and his rhetorical devices unshielded.
-
-
Vonnegut Imitating Vonnegut
- By Joe Kraus on 08-06-18
By: Kurt Vonnegut
-
Factory Girls
- From Village to City in a Changing China
- By: Leslie T. Chang
- Narrated by: Susan Ericksen
- Length: 14 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A book of global significance that provides new insight into China, Factory Girls demonstrates how the mass movement from rural villages to cities is remaking individual lives and transforming Chinese society, much as immigration to America's shores remade our own country a century ago.
-
-
Living in Shenzhen - and What A Disappointment
- By Abstraction on 03-01-10
By: Leslie T. Chang
-
Destined to Witness
- Growing Up Black in Nazi Germany
- By: Hans Massaquoi
- Narrated by: Peter Jay Fernandez
- Length: 19 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
What would life be like for a Black boy growing up in Nazi Germany? This unprecedented autobiography answers that question with the spellbinding true story of Hans J. Massaquoi’s life in Hamburg during the height of Hitler’s regime. Hans is the son of a Black Liberian diplomat father and a white German mother. His father returns to Africa at the beginning of the war, leaving them behind in poverty without the means to flee. Within this tense atmosphere, increasingly violent Nazi policies and Allied bombing raids make Hans and his mother’s lives a day-to-day survival struggle.
-
-
An important story, marred by lackluster writing.
- By Christopher on 03-04-15
By: Hans Massaquoi
-
Ruthless
- Scientology, My Son David Miscavige, and Me
- By: Ronald Miscavige, Dan Koon
- Narrated by: Harvey Betancourt
- Length: 7 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The only book to examine the origins of Scientology's current leader, Ruthless tells the revealing story of David Miscavige's childhood and his path to the head seat of the Church of Scientology, told through the eyes of his father. Ron Miscavige's personal, heartfelt story is a riveting insider's look at life within the world of Scientology.
-
-
Ruthlessly Honest ~ An Engrossing Read!
- By susan rios on 05-05-16
By: Ronald Miscavige, and others
Related to this topic
-
In Order to Live
- A North Korean Girl's Journey to Freedom
- By: Yeonmi Park
- Narrated by: Eji Kim
- Length: 9 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In In Order to Live, Yeonmi Park shines a light not just into the darkest corners of life in North Korea, describing the deprivation and deception she endured and which millions of North Korean people continue to endure to this day, but also onto her own most painful and difficult memories. She tells with bravery and dignity for the first time the story of how she and her mother were betrayed and sold into sexual slavery in China and forced to suffer terrible psychological and physical hardship before they finally made their way to Seoul, South Korea - and to freedom.
-
-
Wow. What a story!
- By Jfm on 02-01-16
By: Yeonmi Park
-
The Reluctant Communist
- My Desertion, Court-Martial, and Forty-Year Imprisonment in North Korea
- By: Charles Robert Jenkins, Jim Fredrick
- Narrated by: John McLain
- Length: 7 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In January of 1965, 24-year-old US Army sergeant Charles Robert Jenkins abandoned his post in South Korea, walked across the DMZ, and surrendered to communist North Korean soldiers standing sentry along the world's most heavily militarized border. He believed his action would get him back to the States and a short jail sentence. Instead he found himself in another sort of prison, where for 40 years he suffered under one of the most brutal and repressive regimes the world has known. This fast-paced, harrowing tale, told plainly and simply by Jenkins (with journalist Jim Frederick).
-
-
Excellent history and human story
- By Anonymous User on 09-16-21
By: Charles Robert Jenkins, and others
-
Nothing to Envy
- Ordinary Lives in North Korea
- By: Barbara Demick
- Narrated by: Karen White
- Length: 12 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Barbara Demick's Nothing to Envy follows the lives of six North Koreans over fifteen years - a chaotic period that saw the death of Kim Il-sung and the unchallenged rise to power of his son, Kim Jong-il, and the devastation of a far-ranging famine that killed one-fifth of the population. Taking us into a landscape never before seen, Demick brings to life what it means to be an average Korean citizen, living under the most repressive totalitarian regime today.
-
-
The man who wants to be GOD
- By Gohar on 05-08-10
By: Barbara Demick
-
Dancing Bears
- By: Witold Szabłowski, Antonia Lloyd-Jones - translator, Claire Bloom - director
- Narrated by: Stefan Rudnicki
- Length: 6 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
For hundreds of years, Bulgarian Gypsies trained bears to dance, welcoming them into their families and taking them on the road to perform. In the early 2000s, with the fall of Communism, they were forced to release the bears into a wildlife refuge. But even today, whenever the bears see a human, they still get up on their hind legs to dance. In the tradition of Ryszard Kapuściński, award-winning Polish journalist, Witold Szabłowski uncovers remarkable stories of people throughout Eastern Europe and in Cuba who, like Bulgaria’s dancing bears, are now free but who seem nostalgic for the time when they were not.
-
-
Intelligent, entertaining, & insightful
- By Kait on 07-23-19
By: Witold Szabłowski, and others
-
A Lucky Child
- A Memoir of Surviving Auschwitz as a Young Boy
- By: Thomas Buergenthal
- Narrated by: Thomas Buergenthal, Don Hagen
- Length: 5 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Thomas Buergenthal, now a Judge in the International Court of Justice in The Hague, tells his astonishing experiences as a young boy in his memoir, A Lucky Child. He arrived at Auschwitz at age 10 after surviving two ghettos and a labor camp. Separated first from his mother and then his father, Buergenthal managed by his wits and some remarkable strokes of luck to survive on his own. Almost two years after his liberation, Buergenthal was miraculously reunited with his mother and in 1951 arrived in the U.S. to start a new life.
-
-
Compelling Account
- By Simone on 04-23-15
-
A Thousand Miles to Freedom
- My Escape from North Korea
- By: Sebastien Falletti, Eunsun Kim
- Narrated by: Emily Woo Zeller
- Length: 5 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Eunsun Kim was born in North Korea, one of the most secretive and oppressive countries in the modern world. As a child, Eunsun loved her country...despite her school field trips to public executions, daily self-criticism sessions, and the increasing gnaw of hunger as the countrywide famine escalated. By the time she was 11 years old, Eunsun's father and grandparents had died of starvation, and Eunsun too was in danger of starving. Finally her mother decided to escape North Korea with Eunsun and her sister.
-
-
Not Much New Here, but Courage and Hope to Spare
- By Gillian on 03-25-16
By: Sebastien Falletti, and others
-
In Order to Live
- A North Korean Girl's Journey to Freedom
- By: Yeonmi Park
- Narrated by: Eji Kim
- Length: 9 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In In Order to Live, Yeonmi Park shines a light not just into the darkest corners of life in North Korea, describing the deprivation and deception she endured and which millions of North Korean people continue to endure to this day, but also onto her own most painful and difficult memories. She tells with bravery and dignity for the first time the story of how she and her mother were betrayed and sold into sexual slavery in China and forced to suffer terrible psychological and physical hardship before they finally made their way to Seoul, South Korea - and to freedom.
-
-
Wow. What a story!
- By Jfm on 02-01-16
By: Yeonmi Park
-
The Reluctant Communist
- My Desertion, Court-Martial, and Forty-Year Imprisonment in North Korea
- By: Charles Robert Jenkins, Jim Fredrick
- Narrated by: John McLain
- Length: 7 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In January of 1965, 24-year-old US Army sergeant Charles Robert Jenkins abandoned his post in South Korea, walked across the DMZ, and surrendered to communist North Korean soldiers standing sentry along the world's most heavily militarized border. He believed his action would get him back to the States and a short jail sentence. Instead he found himself in another sort of prison, where for 40 years he suffered under one of the most brutal and repressive regimes the world has known. This fast-paced, harrowing tale, told plainly and simply by Jenkins (with journalist Jim Frederick).
-
-
Excellent history and human story
- By Anonymous User on 09-16-21
By: Charles Robert Jenkins, and others
-
Nothing to Envy
- Ordinary Lives in North Korea
- By: Barbara Demick
- Narrated by: Karen White
- Length: 12 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Barbara Demick's Nothing to Envy follows the lives of six North Koreans over fifteen years - a chaotic period that saw the death of Kim Il-sung and the unchallenged rise to power of his son, Kim Jong-il, and the devastation of a far-ranging famine that killed one-fifth of the population. Taking us into a landscape never before seen, Demick brings to life what it means to be an average Korean citizen, living under the most repressive totalitarian regime today.
-
-
The man who wants to be GOD
- By Gohar on 05-08-10
By: Barbara Demick
-
Dancing Bears
- By: Witold Szabłowski, Antonia Lloyd-Jones - translator, Claire Bloom - director
- Narrated by: Stefan Rudnicki
- Length: 6 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
For hundreds of years, Bulgarian Gypsies trained bears to dance, welcoming them into their families and taking them on the road to perform. In the early 2000s, with the fall of Communism, they were forced to release the bears into a wildlife refuge. But even today, whenever the bears see a human, they still get up on their hind legs to dance. In the tradition of Ryszard Kapuściński, award-winning Polish journalist, Witold Szabłowski uncovers remarkable stories of people throughout Eastern Europe and in Cuba who, like Bulgaria’s dancing bears, are now free but who seem nostalgic for the time when they were not.
-
-
Intelligent, entertaining, & insightful
- By Kait on 07-23-19
By: Witold Szabłowski, and others
-
A Lucky Child
- A Memoir of Surviving Auschwitz as a Young Boy
- By: Thomas Buergenthal
- Narrated by: Thomas Buergenthal, Don Hagen
- Length: 5 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Thomas Buergenthal, now a Judge in the International Court of Justice in The Hague, tells his astonishing experiences as a young boy in his memoir, A Lucky Child. He arrived at Auschwitz at age 10 after surviving two ghettos and a labor camp. Separated first from his mother and then his father, Buergenthal managed by his wits and some remarkable strokes of luck to survive on his own. Almost two years after his liberation, Buergenthal was miraculously reunited with his mother and in 1951 arrived in the U.S. to start a new life.
-
-
Compelling Account
- By Simone on 04-23-15
-
A Thousand Miles to Freedom
- My Escape from North Korea
- By: Sebastien Falletti, Eunsun Kim
- Narrated by: Emily Woo Zeller
- Length: 5 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Eunsun Kim was born in North Korea, one of the most secretive and oppressive countries in the modern world. As a child, Eunsun loved her country...despite her school field trips to public executions, daily self-criticism sessions, and the increasing gnaw of hunger as the countrywide famine escalated. By the time she was 11 years old, Eunsun's father and grandparents had died of starvation, and Eunsun too was in danger of starving. Finally her mother decided to escape North Korea with Eunsun and her sister.
-
-
Not Much New Here, but Courage and Hope to Spare
- By Gillian on 03-25-16
By: Sebastien Falletti, and others
-
The Aquariums of Pyongyang
- By: Chol-hwan Kang, Pierre Rigoulot
- Narrated by: Stephen Park
- Length: 7 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Amid escalating nuclear tensions, Kim Jong-un and North Korea's other leaders have kept a tight grasp on their one-party state, quashing any nascent opposition movements and sending all suspected dissidents to its brutal concentration camps for "re-education". Kang Chol-Hwan is the first survivor of one of these camps to escape and tell his story to the world, documenting the extreme conditions in these gulags and providing a personal insight into life in North Korea.
-
-
Riveting!!
- By Iread on 11-12-20
By: Chol-hwan Kang, and others
-
Bend, Not Break
- A Life in Two Worlds
- By: Ping Fu, MeiMei Fox
- Narrated by: Robin Miles
- Length: 10 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Ping Fu knows what it’s like to be a child soldier, a factory worker, and a political prisoner. To be beaten and raped for the crime of being born into a well-educated family. To be deported with barely enough money for a plane ticket to a bewildering new land. To start all over, without family or friends, as a maid, waitress, and student. Ping Fu also knows what it’s like to be a pioneering software programmer, an innovator, a CEO, and Inc. magazine’s Entrepreneur of the Year.
-
-
A true account as good as any Horatio Alger story!
- By Roy B. Paschal on 01-14-13
By: Ping Fu, and others
-
Midnight in Siberia
- A Train Journey into the Heart of Russia
- By: David Greene
- Narrated by: David Greene
- Length: 7 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Through the stories of fellow travelers, Greene explores the challenges and opportunities facing the new Russia: a nation that boasts open elections and newfound prosperity yet still continues to endure oppression, corruption, and stark inequality. Set against the wintery landscape of Siberia, Greene’s lively travel narrative offers a glimpse into the soul of 20th century Russia: how its people remember their history and look forward to the future.
-
-
Long String of NPR Short Reports
- By Sara on 04-13-15
By: David Greene
-
Country Driving
- A Journey Through China from Farm to Factory
- By: Peter Hessler
- Narrated by: Peter Berkrot
- Length: 16 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the summer of 2001, Peter Hessler, the longtime Beijing correspondent for The New Yorker, acquired his Chinese driver's license. For the next seven years, he traveled the country, tracking how the automobile and improved roads were transforming China.
-
-
Pass the white rice please
- By Nick on 02-18-10
By: Peter Hessler
-
Don't Give Up, Don't Give In
- Lessons from an Extraordinary Life
- By: Louis Zamperini, David Rensin
- Narrated by: Arthur Morey
- Length: 4 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In Don't Give Up, Don’t Give In, Louis Zamperini offers never-before told tales that embody his simple, yet essential secrets of success: how his relationship with God, his ever-positive attitude, his constant pursuit of accomplishment - and a healthy dose of mischief - have helped him lead a long and fulfilled life, lessons we can all use to transform our own.
-
-
Great Followup to "Unbroken!"
- By Johnny on 05-13-15
By: Louis Zamperini, and others
-
The Pursuit of Happyness (Abridged)
- By: Chris Gardner
- Narrated by: Andre Blake
- Length: 5 hrs and 42 mins
- Abridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
At the age of 20, Chris Gardner arrived in San Francisco to pursue a promising career in medicine. However, he surprised everyone and himself by setting his sights on the competitive world of high finance. Yet no sooner had he landed an entry-level position at a prestigious firm, Gardner found himself caught in a web of incredibly challenging circumstances that left him part of the city's working homeless with his toddler son.
-
-
Very Good Story!
- By Lito Da Critic on 06-02-06
By: Chris Gardner
-
Soldier Girls
- The Battles of Three Women at Home and at War
- By: Helen Thorpe
- Narrated by: Donna Postel
- Length: 15 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Soldier Girls follows the lives of three women on their paths to the military. These women, who are quite different in every way, become friends, and we watch their interaction and also what happens when they are separated. We see their families, their lovers, their spouses, their children. We see them work extremely hard, deal with the attentions of men on base and in war zones, and struggle to stay connected to their families back home.
-
-
Valor Knows No Gender
- By Cynthia on 03-21-15
By: Helen Thorpe
-
Because Our Fathers Lied
- A Memoir of Truth and Family, from Vietnam to Today
- By: Craig McNamara
- Narrated by: Keith Sellon-Wright, Craig McNamara
- Length: 7 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Craig McNamara came of age in the political tumult and upheaval of the late '60s. While Craig McNamara would grow up to take part in anti-war demonstrations, his father, Robert McNamara, served as John F. Kennedy’s Secretary of Defense and the architect of the Vietnam War. This searching and revealing memoir offers an intimate picture of one father and son at pivotal periods in American history. Because Our Fathers Lied is more than a family story—it is a story about America.
-
-
Title Does Not Reflect Scope of the Book
- By Amazon Customer on 07-15-22
By: Craig McNamara
-
Factory Girls
- From Village to City in a Changing China
- By: Leslie T. Chang
- Narrated by: Susan Ericksen
- Length: 14 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A book of global significance that provides new insight into China, Factory Girls demonstrates how the mass movement from rural villages to cities is remaking individual lives and transforming Chinese society, much as immigration to America's shores remade our own country a century ago.
-
-
Living in Shenzhen - and What A Disappointment
- By Abstraction on 03-01-10
By: Leslie T. Chang
-
Strange Stones
- By: Peter Hessler
- Narrated by: George Backman
- Length: 13 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Full of unforgettable figures and an unrelenting spirit of adventure, Strange Stones is a far-ranging, thought-provoking collection of Peter Hessler’s best reportage - a dazzling display of the powerful storytelling, shrewd cultural insight, and warm sense of humor that are the trademarks of his work. Over the last decade, as a staff writer for The New Yorker and the author of three books, Peter Hessler has lived in Asia and the United States, writing as both native and knowledgeable outsider in these two very different regions.
-
-
funny, entertaining
- By Katherine on 08-02-13
By: Peter Hessler
-
The Accountant's Story
- Inside the Violent World of the Medellín Cartel
- By: Roberto Escobar
- Narrated by: Ruben Diaz
- Length: 9 hrs
- Abridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In short, this is Pablo Escobar's story in the words of one of his closest confidants, his brother Roberto. It's all here - the brutal violence inside the world of the drug cartel, dealing with American drug forces and the CIA, the problems the Escobars faced when going up against the Colombian mafia, even Pablo's moments of kindness and compassion. As Roberto points out, although many people view Escobar as a monster, thousands still visit his grave every year to mourn him, and revere him as a savior.
-
-
get the unabridged version
- By Erwin Tenorio on 08-13-09
By: Roberto Escobar
-
The Girls of Atomic City
- The Untold Story of the Women Who Helped Win World War II
- By: Denise Kiernan
- Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell
- Length: 12 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
At the height of World War II, Oak Ridge, Tennessee, was home to 75,000 residents, consuming more electricity than New York City. But to most of the world, the town did not exist. Thousands of civilians - many of them young women from small towns across the South - were recruited to this secret city, enticed by solid wages and the promise of war-ending work. Kept very much in the dark, few would ever guess the true nature of the tasks they performed each day in the hulking factories in the middle of the Appalachian Mountains.
-
-
Important story of this secret city
- By CBlox on 11-14-13
By: Denise Kiernan