-
Waiting to Be Arrested at Night
- A Uyghur Poet's Memoir of China's Genocide
- Narrated by: Greg Watanabe
- Length: 7 hrs and 40 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 $20.33
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
Publisher's summary
Brought to you by Penguin.
A poet's account of one of the world's most urgent humanitarian crises, and a harrowing tale of a family's escape from genocide
One by one, Tahir Hamut Izgil's friends disappeared. The Chinese government's brutal persecution of the Uyghur people had continued for years, but in 2017 it assumed a terrifying new scale. The Uyghurs, a predominantly Muslim minority group in western China, were experiencing an echo of the worst horrors of the twentieth century, amplified by China's establishment of an all-seeing high-tech surveillance state. Over a million people have vanished into China's internment camps for Muslim minorities.
Tahir, a prominent poet and intellectual, had been no stranger to persecution. After he attempted to travel abroad in 1996, police tortured him until he confessed to fabricated charges and sent him to a re-education through labour camp. But even having endured three years in the camp, he could never have predicted the Chinese government's radical solution to the Uyghur question two decades later. When he noticed that the park near his home was nearly empty because so many neighbours had been arrested, he knew the police would be coming for him any day. It soon became clear to Tahir and his wife that fleeing the country was the family's only hope.
Waiting to Be Arrested at Night is the story of the political, social, and cultural destruction of Tahir Hamut Izgil's homeland. Among leading Uyghur intellectuals and writers, he is the only one known to have escaped China since the mass internments began. His book is a call for the world to awaken to the unfolding catastrophe, and a tribute to his friends and fellow Uyghurs whose voices have been silenced.
Listeners also enjoyed...
-
A Stone Is Most Precious Where It Belongs
- A Memoir of Uyghur Exile, Hope, and Survival
- By: Gulchehra Hoja
- Narrated by: Sarah Suzuk
- Length: 8 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In February 2018, twenty-four members of Gulchehra Hoja's family disappeared overnight. Her crime – and thus that of her family – was her award-winning investigations on the plight of her people, the Uyghurs, whose existence and culture is being systematically destroyed by the Chinese government. A Stone is Most Precious Where it Belongs is Gulchehra’s stunning memoir, taking us into the everyday world of life under Chinese rule in East Turkestan (more formally as the Xinjiang Autonomous Region of China), from her idyllic childhood to its modern nightmare.
-
-
Beautiful
- By Genniphur on 08-14-23
By: Gulchehra Hoja
-
Up Home
- One Girl's Journey
- By: Ruth J. Simmons
- Narrated by: Ruth J. Simmons
- Length: 6 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Born in 1945, Ruth J. Simmons grew up the twelfth child of sharecroppers. Her first home had no running water, no electricity, no books to read. Yet despite this—or, in her words, because of it—Simmons would become the first Black president of an Ivy League university. The former president of Smith College, Brown University, and Prairie View A&M, Texas’s oldest HBCU, Simmons has inspired generations of students as she herself made history.
-
-
Beautiful narrative
- By Jesse Saucedo on 07-08-24
By: Ruth J. Simmons
-
Romney
- A Reckoning
- By: McKay Coppins
- Narrated by: Jonathan Davis, McKay Coppins
- Length: 12 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Few figures in American politics have seen more and said less than Mitt Romney. An outspoken dissident in Donald Trump’s GOP, he has made headlines in recent years for standing alone against the forces he believes are poisoning the party he once led. Romney was the first senator in history to vote to remove from office a president of his own party. When that president’s supporters went on to storm the US Capitol, Romney delivered a thundering speech from the Senate floor accusing his fellow Republicans of stoking insurrection.
-
-
Political and intellectual biography at its best!
- By Amazon Customer on 10-25-23
By: McKay Coppins
-
Anansi's Gold
- The Man Who Looted the West, Outfoxed Washington, and Swindled the World
- By: Yepoka Yeebo
- Narrated by: Jude Owusu
- Length: 12 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When Ghana achieved independence from Britain in 1957, it instantly became a target for home-grown opportunists and rapacious Western interests determined to claim whatever assets colonialism hadn’t already stripped. A CIA-funded military junta ousted the new nation’s inspiring president, Kwame Nkrumah, then falsely accused him of hiding the country’s gold overseas. Into this big lie stepped one of history’s most charismatic scammers, a con man to rival the trickster god Anansi.
-
-
Great story on how the world works
- By Godfred Yemofio on 02-09-24
By: Yepoka Yeebo
-
Time's Echo
- The Second World War, the Holocaust, and the Music of Remembrance
- By: Jeremy Eichler
- Narrated by: Jeremy Eichler, Sherrill Milnes
- Length: 11 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1785, when the great German poet Friedrich Schiller penned his immortal “Ode to Joy,” he crystallized the deepest hopes and dreams of the European Enlightenment for a new era of peace and freedom, a time when millions would be embraced as equals. Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony then gave wing to Schiller’s words, but barely a century later these same words were claimed by Nazi propagandists and twisted by a barbarism so complete that it ruptured, as one philosopher put it, “the deep layer of solidarity among all who wear a human face.”
-
-
Beautiful
- By Chuck Millar, PhD on 05-18-24
By: Jeremy Eichler
-
A Day in the Life of Abed Salama
- Anatomy of a Jerusalem Tragedy
- By: Nathan Thrall
- Narrated by: Peter Ganim
- Length: 6 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Five-year-old Milad Salama is excited for a school trip to a theme park on the outskirts of Jerusalem. On the way, his bus collides with a semitrailer. His father, Abed, gets word of the crash and rushes to the site. The scene is chaos—the children have been taken to different hospitals in Jerusalem and the West Bank; some are missing, others cannot be identified. Abed sets off on an odyssey to learn Milad’s fate. It is every parent’s worst nightmare, but for Abed it is compounded by the maze of physical, emotional, and bureaucratic obstacles he must navigate because he is Palestinian.
-
-
We Must Look Deeper into this Struggle
- By Amazon Customer on 10-22-23
By: Nathan Thrall
-
A Stone Is Most Precious Where It Belongs
- A Memoir of Uyghur Exile, Hope, and Survival
- By: Gulchehra Hoja
- Narrated by: Sarah Suzuk
- Length: 8 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In February 2018, twenty-four members of Gulchehra Hoja's family disappeared overnight. Her crime – and thus that of her family – was her award-winning investigations on the plight of her people, the Uyghurs, whose existence and culture is being systematically destroyed by the Chinese government. A Stone is Most Precious Where it Belongs is Gulchehra’s stunning memoir, taking us into the everyday world of life under Chinese rule in East Turkestan (more formally as the Xinjiang Autonomous Region of China), from her idyllic childhood to its modern nightmare.
-
-
Beautiful
- By Genniphur on 08-14-23
By: Gulchehra Hoja
-
Up Home
- One Girl's Journey
- By: Ruth J. Simmons
- Narrated by: Ruth J. Simmons
- Length: 6 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Born in 1945, Ruth J. Simmons grew up the twelfth child of sharecroppers. Her first home had no running water, no electricity, no books to read. Yet despite this—or, in her words, because of it—Simmons would become the first Black president of an Ivy League university. The former president of Smith College, Brown University, and Prairie View A&M, Texas’s oldest HBCU, Simmons has inspired generations of students as she herself made history.
-
-
Beautiful narrative
- By Jesse Saucedo on 07-08-24
By: Ruth J. Simmons
-
Romney
- A Reckoning
- By: McKay Coppins
- Narrated by: Jonathan Davis, McKay Coppins
- Length: 12 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Few figures in American politics have seen more and said less than Mitt Romney. An outspoken dissident in Donald Trump’s GOP, he has made headlines in recent years for standing alone against the forces he believes are poisoning the party he once led. Romney was the first senator in history to vote to remove from office a president of his own party. When that president’s supporters went on to storm the US Capitol, Romney delivered a thundering speech from the Senate floor accusing his fellow Republicans of stoking insurrection.
-
-
Political and intellectual biography at its best!
- By Amazon Customer on 10-25-23
By: McKay Coppins
-
Anansi's Gold
- The Man Who Looted the West, Outfoxed Washington, and Swindled the World
- By: Yepoka Yeebo
- Narrated by: Jude Owusu
- Length: 12 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When Ghana achieved independence from Britain in 1957, it instantly became a target for home-grown opportunists and rapacious Western interests determined to claim whatever assets colonialism hadn’t already stripped. A CIA-funded military junta ousted the new nation’s inspiring president, Kwame Nkrumah, then falsely accused him of hiding the country’s gold overseas. Into this big lie stepped one of history’s most charismatic scammers, a con man to rival the trickster god Anansi.
-
-
Great story on how the world works
- By Godfred Yemofio on 02-09-24
By: Yepoka Yeebo
-
Time's Echo
- The Second World War, the Holocaust, and the Music of Remembrance
- By: Jeremy Eichler
- Narrated by: Jeremy Eichler, Sherrill Milnes
- Length: 11 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1785, when the great German poet Friedrich Schiller penned his immortal “Ode to Joy,” he crystallized the deepest hopes and dreams of the European Enlightenment for a new era of peace and freedom, a time when millions would be embraced as equals. Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony then gave wing to Schiller’s words, but barely a century later these same words were claimed by Nazi propagandists and twisted by a barbarism so complete that it ruptured, as one philosopher put it, “the deep layer of solidarity among all who wear a human face.”
-
-
Beautiful
- By Chuck Millar, PhD on 05-18-24
By: Jeremy Eichler
-
A Day in the Life of Abed Salama
- Anatomy of a Jerusalem Tragedy
- By: Nathan Thrall
- Narrated by: Peter Ganim
- Length: 6 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Five-year-old Milad Salama is excited for a school trip to a theme park on the outskirts of Jerusalem. On the way, his bus collides with a semitrailer. His father, Abed, gets word of the crash and rushes to the site. The scene is chaos—the children have been taken to different hospitals in Jerusalem and the West Bank; some are missing, others cannot be identified. Abed sets off on an odyssey to learn Milad’s fate. It is every parent’s worst nightmare, but for Abed it is compounded by the maze of physical, emotional, and bureaucratic obstacles he must navigate because he is Palestinian.
-
-
We Must Look Deeper into this Struggle
- By Amazon Customer on 10-22-23
By: Nathan Thrall
-
The Bee Sting
- A Novel
- By: Paul Murray
- Narrated by: Heather O’Sullivan, Barry Fitzgerald, Beau Holland, and others
- Length: 26 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Barnes family is in trouble. Dickie’s once-lucrative car business is going under—but Dickie is spending his days in the woods, building an apocalypse-proof bunker with a renegade handyman. His wife, Imelda, is selling off her jewelry on eBay and half-heartedly dodging the attention of fast-talking cattle farmer Big Mike, while their teenage daughter, Cass, formerly top of her class, seems determined to binge drink her way through her final exams. As for twelve-year-old PJ, he’s on the brink of running away.
-
-
Bone Clocks meets Jonathan Franzen
- By Cranson on 10-26-23
By: Paul Murray
-
Collision of Power
- Trump, Bezos, and the Washington Post
- By: Martin Baron
- Narrated by: Liev Schreiber
- Length: 16 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Marty Baron took charge of The Washington Post newsroom in 2013, after nearly a dozen years leading The Boston Globe. Just seven months into his new job, Baron received explosive news: Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon, would buy the Post, marking a sudden end to control by the venerated family that had presided over the paper for 80 years. Just over two years later, Donald Trump won the presidency.
-
-
Interesting insight
- By Amazon Customer on 10-08-23
By: Martin Baron
-
Beijing Rules
- How China Weaponized Its Economy to Confront the World
- By: Bethany Allen
- Narrated by: Emily Woo Zeller
- Length: 12 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
An acclaimed journalist on contemporary China lays bare the country's two-decade quest for global dominance and how the Chinese Communist Party coopted what Western leaders have long considered their most powerful tool in the fight for liberal democracy—capitalism—to expand its influence worldwide.
-
-
The new cold war and racist double standards
- By Burkay on 04-10-24
By: Bethany Allen
-
War and Punishment
- Putin, Zelensky, and the Path to Russia's Invasion of Ukraine
- By: Mikhail Zygar
- Narrated by: Richard Attlee
- Length: 15 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
As soon as the Russian invasion of Ukraine began, prominent independent Russian journalist Mikhail Zygar circulated a Facebook petition signed first by hundreds of his cultural and journalistic contacts and then by thousands of others. That act led to a new law in Russia criminalizing criticism of the war, and Zygar fled Russia. In his time as a journalist, Zygar has interviewed President Zelensky and had access to many of the major players—from politicians to oligarchs.
-
-
Remarkable review of a terrible situation.
- By Philip J. Kurle on 09-15-23
By: Mikhail Zygar
-
The Great Escape
- A True Story of Forced Labor and Immigrant Dreams in America
- By: Saket Soni
- Narrated by: Saket Soni
- Length: 12 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In late 2006, Saket Soni, a 28-year-old, Indian-born community organizer received an anonymous phone call from an Indian migrant worker inside a Mississippi labor camp. He and 500 other men were living in squalor in Gulf Coast “man camps,” surrounded by barbed wire, watched by armed guards, crammed into cold trailers with putrid portable toilets, forced to eat moldy bread and frozen rice. Worse, lured by the promise of good work and green cards, the men had desperately scraped together up to $20,000 each to apply for this “opportunity”.
-
-
Riveting!
- By Susan M. Lewis on 10-18-23
By: Saket Soni
-
In the Camps
- China's High-Tech Penal Colony
- By: Darren Byler
- Narrated by: Fajer Al-Kaisi
- Length: 3 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Based on hours of interviews with camp survivors and workers, thousands of government documents, and over a decade of research, Darren Byler, one of the leading experts on Uyghur society and Chinese surveillance systems, uncovers how a vast network of technology provided by private companies - facial surveillance, voice recognition, smartphone data - enabled the state and corporations to blacklist millions of Uyghurs because of their religious and cultural practice starting in 2017.
By: Darren Byler
-
The Undertow
- Scenes from a Slow Civil War
- By: Jeff Sharlet
- Narrated by: Jeff Sharlet
- Length: 11 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
An unmatched guide to the religious dimensions of American politics, Jeff Sharlet journeys into corners of our national psyche where others fear to tread. The Undertow is both inquiry and meditation, an attempt to understand how, over the last decade, reaction has morphed into delusion, social division into distrust, distrust into paranoia, and hatred into fantasies—sometimes realities—of violence.
-
-
I'm just not feeling this one....
- By J. Richmond on 08-04-23
By: Jeff Sharlet
-
A Man of Two Faces
- A Memoir, a History, a Memorial
- By: Viet Thanh Nguyen
- Narrated by: Viet Thanh Nguyen
- Length: 8 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
With insight, humor, formal invention, and lyricism, in A Man of Two Faces Viet Thanh Nguyen rewinds the film of his own life. He expands the genre of personal memoir by acknowledging larger stories of refugeehood, colonization, and ideas about Vietnam and America, writing with his trademark sardonic wit and incisive analysis, as well as a deep emotional openness about his life as a father and a son.
-
-
If you don't like coddled, cry-babies, then avoid
- By Wayne A. Curto on 12-30-23
-
Everything Nothing Someone
- A Memoir
- By: Alice Carrière
- Narrated by: Alice Carrière
- Length: 10 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Alice Carrière tells the story of her unconventional upbringing in Greenwich Village as the daughter of a remote mother, the renowned artist Jennifer Bartlett, and a charismatic father, European actor Mathieu Carrière. From an early age, Alice is forced to navigate her mother’s recovered memories of ritualized sexual abuse, which she turns into art, and her father’s confusing attentions—her childhood is spent in an adult’s world, with little-to-no boundaries or supervision.
-
-
This book is awful.
- By af_90 on 12-17-23
By: Alice Carrière
-
The Chief Witness
- Escape from China's Modern-Day Concentration Camps
- By: Sayragul Sauytbay, Alexandra Cavelius
- Narrated by: Xifeng Brooks
- Length: 9 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Born in China’s northwestern province, Sayragul Sauytbay trained as a doctor before being appointed a senior civil servant. But her life was upended when the Chinese authorities incarcerated her. Her crime? Being Kazakh, one of China’s ethnic minorities. The northwestern province borders the largest number of foreign nations and is the point in China that is the closest to Europe. In recent years, it has become home to more than 1,200 penal camps - modern-day gulags that are estimated to house three million members of the Kazakh and Uyghur minorities.
-
-
A Must Read!
- By Stephanie on 12-22-21
By: Sayragul Sauytbay, and others
-
Resistance Women
- A Novel
- By: Jennifer Chiaverini
- Narrated by: Saskia Maarleveld
- Length: 20 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From the New York Times best-selling author of Mrs. Lincoln’s Dressmaker, an enthralling historical saga that recreates the danger, romance, and sacrifice of an era and brings to life one courageous, passionate American - Mildred Fish Harnack - and her circle of women friends who waged a clandestine battle against Hitler in Nazi Berlin.
-
-
One of THE best historical fiction WW2 books!
- By JeanAnn Trombley on 06-04-19
-
The Country of the Blind
- A Memoir at the End of Sight
- By: Andrew Leland
- Narrated by: Andrew Leland
- Length: 7 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
We meet Andrew Leland as he’s suspended in the liminal state of the soon-to-be blind: he’s midway through his life with retinitis pigmentosa, a condition that ushers those who live with it from sightedness to blindness over years, even decades. He grew up with full vision, but starting in his teenage years, his sight began to degrade from the outside in. Soon— but without knowing exactly when—he will likely have no vision left. Full of apprehension but also dogged curiosity, Leland embarks on a sweeping exploration of the state of being that awaits him.
-
-
Lovely and accurate depiction of the world of the partially sighted or blind
- By Vanessa on 09-21-23
By: Andrew Leland
Critic reviews
"Tahir Hamut Izgil's gripping book Waiting to Be Arrested at Night evokes haunting memories of the terror and persecution he endured in his homeland, where dreams are turned into nightmares... To call this merely 'a good book' is an understatement." (Ai Weiwei)
"I was riveted and chastened by Tahir Hamut Izgil's memoir of surveillance, internment, violent persecution and miraculous flight. Izgil's crystalline, courageous prose is a wake-up call for everyone invested in the myth - and also the possibility - of freedom." (Tracy K. Smith)
"Tahir Hamut Izgil's powerful and poignant memoir is an instant classic. He lays bare the vicious genocidal persecution of the precious Uyghur people in a very personal and persuasive way. His grand poetic temperament exemplifies the unstoppable resilience of the rich Uyghur soul." (Cornel West, author of Democracy Matters)
Related to this topic
-
1000 Years of Joys and Sorrows
- A Memoir
- By: Ai Weiwei, Allan H. Barr - translator
- Narrated by: David Shih
- Length: 13 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Once a close associate of Mao Zedong and the nation’s most celebrated poet, Ai Weiwei’s father, Ai Qing, was branded a rightist during the Cultural Revolution, and he and his family were banished to a desolate place known as “Little Siberia,” where Ai Qing was sentenced to hard labor cleaning public toilets. Ai Weiwei recounts his childhood in exile, and his difficult decision to leave his family to study art in America, where he befriended Allen Ginsberg and was inspired by Andy Warhol and the artworks of Marcel Duchamp.
-
-
This book changed my life
- By Johnny Nopolis on 08-16-22
By: Ai Weiwei, and others
-
The Unanswered Letter
- One Holocaust Family’s Desperate Plea for Help
- By: Faris Cassell
- Narrated by: Kate Mulligan
- Length: 15 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In August 1939, just days before World War II broke out in Europe, a Jewish man in Vienna named Alfred Berger mailed a desperate letter to a stranger in America who shared his last name. Decades later, journalist Faris Cassell stumbled upon the stunning letter and became determined to uncover the story behind it. How did the American Bergers respond? Did Alfred and his family escape Nazi Germany?
-
-
Wow, what a story and excellent new author!
- By Amazon Customer on 09-11-20
By: Faris Cassell
-
The Chief Witness
- Escape from China's Modern-Day Concentration Camps
- By: Sayragul Sauytbay, Alexandra Cavelius
- Narrated by: Xifeng Brooks
- Length: 9 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Born in China’s northwestern province, Sayragul Sauytbay trained as a doctor before being appointed a senior civil servant. But her life was upended when the Chinese authorities incarcerated her. Her crime? Being Kazakh, one of China’s ethnic minorities. The northwestern province borders the largest number of foreign nations and is the point in China that is the closest to Europe. In recent years, it has become home to more than 1,200 penal camps - modern-day gulags that are estimated to house three million members of the Kazakh and Uyghur minorities.
-
-
A Must Read!
- By Stephanie on 12-22-21
By: Sayragul Sauytbay, and others
-
After the Last Border
- Two Families and the Story of Refuge in America
- By: Jessica Goudeau
- Narrated by: Soneela Nankani
- Length: 13 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The welcoming and acceptance of immigrants and refugees have been central to America's identity for centuries - yet America has periodically turned its back in times of the greatest humanitarian need. After the Last Border is an intimate look at the lives of two women as they struggle for the 21st-century American dream, having won the "golden ticket" to settle as refugees in Austin, Texas.
-
-
Great Content. Odd Structure.
- By Susan Stillings on 02-10-21
By: Jessica Goudeau
-
Midnight in Mexico
- A Reporter's Journey through a Country's Descent into Darkness
- By: Alfredo Corchado
- Narrated by: Timothy Andres Pabon
- Length: 9 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Noted Mexican American journalist Alfredo Corchado refuses to shrink from reporting on government corruption, murders in Juarez, or the ruthless drug cartels of Mexico. One night, Corchado received a tip that he could be the next target of the Zetas, a violent paramilitary group - and that he had 24 hours to find out if the threat was true. Midnight in Mexico is the story of one man's quest to report the truth of his country - as he races to save his own life.
-
-
Fascinating & suspenseful historical non-fiction!
- By Ruth Barrie on 06-30-19
By: Alfredo Corchado
-
The Buried
- An Archaeology of the Egyptian Revolution
- By: Peter Hessler
- Narrated by: Peter Hessler
- Length: 16 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Drawn by a fascination with Egypt's rich history and culture, Peter Hessler moved with his wife and twin daughters to Cairo in 2011. He wanted to learn Arabic, explore Cairo's neighborhoods, and visit the legendary archaeological digs of Upper Egypt. After his years of covering China for The New Yorker, friends warned him Egypt would be a much quieter place. But not long before he arrived, the Egyptian Arab Spring had begun, and now the country was in chaos.
-
-
A Fascinating, Funny, and Moving Account of Egypt
- By Jefferson on 07-23-19
By: Peter Hessler
-
1000 Years of Joys and Sorrows
- A Memoir
- By: Ai Weiwei, Allan H. Barr - translator
- Narrated by: David Shih
- Length: 13 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Once a close associate of Mao Zedong and the nation’s most celebrated poet, Ai Weiwei’s father, Ai Qing, was branded a rightist during the Cultural Revolution, and he and his family were banished to a desolate place known as “Little Siberia,” where Ai Qing was sentenced to hard labor cleaning public toilets. Ai Weiwei recounts his childhood in exile, and his difficult decision to leave his family to study art in America, where he befriended Allen Ginsberg and was inspired by Andy Warhol and the artworks of Marcel Duchamp.
-
-
This book changed my life
- By Johnny Nopolis on 08-16-22
By: Ai Weiwei, and others
-
The Unanswered Letter
- One Holocaust Family’s Desperate Plea for Help
- By: Faris Cassell
- Narrated by: Kate Mulligan
- Length: 15 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In August 1939, just days before World War II broke out in Europe, a Jewish man in Vienna named Alfred Berger mailed a desperate letter to a stranger in America who shared his last name. Decades later, journalist Faris Cassell stumbled upon the stunning letter and became determined to uncover the story behind it. How did the American Bergers respond? Did Alfred and his family escape Nazi Germany?
-
-
Wow, what a story and excellent new author!
- By Amazon Customer on 09-11-20
By: Faris Cassell
-
The Chief Witness
- Escape from China's Modern-Day Concentration Camps
- By: Sayragul Sauytbay, Alexandra Cavelius
- Narrated by: Xifeng Brooks
- Length: 9 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Born in China’s northwestern province, Sayragul Sauytbay trained as a doctor before being appointed a senior civil servant. But her life was upended when the Chinese authorities incarcerated her. Her crime? Being Kazakh, one of China’s ethnic minorities. The northwestern province borders the largest number of foreign nations and is the point in China that is the closest to Europe. In recent years, it has become home to more than 1,200 penal camps - modern-day gulags that are estimated to house three million members of the Kazakh and Uyghur minorities.
-
-
A Must Read!
- By Stephanie on 12-22-21
By: Sayragul Sauytbay, and others
-
After the Last Border
- Two Families and the Story of Refuge in America
- By: Jessica Goudeau
- Narrated by: Soneela Nankani
- Length: 13 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The welcoming and acceptance of immigrants and refugees have been central to America's identity for centuries - yet America has periodically turned its back in times of the greatest humanitarian need. After the Last Border is an intimate look at the lives of two women as they struggle for the 21st-century American dream, having won the "golden ticket" to settle as refugees in Austin, Texas.
-
-
Great Content. Odd Structure.
- By Susan Stillings on 02-10-21
By: Jessica Goudeau
-
Midnight in Mexico
- A Reporter's Journey through a Country's Descent into Darkness
- By: Alfredo Corchado
- Narrated by: Timothy Andres Pabon
- Length: 9 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Noted Mexican American journalist Alfredo Corchado refuses to shrink from reporting on government corruption, murders in Juarez, or the ruthless drug cartels of Mexico. One night, Corchado received a tip that he could be the next target of the Zetas, a violent paramilitary group - and that he had 24 hours to find out if the threat was true. Midnight in Mexico is the story of one man's quest to report the truth of his country - as he races to save his own life.
-
-
Fascinating & suspenseful historical non-fiction!
- By Ruth Barrie on 06-30-19
By: Alfredo Corchado
-
The Buried
- An Archaeology of the Egyptian Revolution
- By: Peter Hessler
- Narrated by: Peter Hessler
- Length: 16 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Drawn by a fascination with Egypt's rich history and culture, Peter Hessler moved with his wife and twin daughters to Cairo in 2011. He wanted to learn Arabic, explore Cairo's neighborhoods, and visit the legendary archaeological digs of Upper Egypt. After his years of covering China for The New Yorker, friends warned him Egypt would be a much quieter place. But not long before he arrived, the Egyptian Arab Spring had begun, and now the country was in chaos.
-
-
A Fascinating, Funny, and Moving Account of Egypt
- By Jefferson on 07-23-19
By: Peter Hessler
-
The Last Jews in Berlin
- By: Leonard Gross
- Narrated by: David de Vries
- Length: 10 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When Adolf Hitler came to power in 1933, approximately 160,000 Jews called Berlin home. By 1943 less than 5,000 remained in the nation's capital, the epicenter of Nazism, and by the end of the war, that number had dwindled to 1,000. All the others had died in air raids, starved to death, committed suicide, or been shipped off to the death camps. In this captivating and harrowing book, Leonard Gross details the real-life stories of a dozen Jewish men and women who spent the final 27 months of World War II underground, hiding in plain sight.
-
-
Very good WWll Jewish lives in Berlin
- By it.is grat!' on 10-30-24
By: Leonard Gross
-
The Art of Resistance
- My Four Years in the French Underground: A Memoir
- By: Justus Rosenberg
- Narrated by: Rob Shapiro
- Length: 7 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1937, as the Nazis gained control and anti-Semitism spread in the Free City of Danzig, a majority German city on the Baltic Sea, 16-year-old Justus Rosenberg was sent to Paris to finish his education in safety. Three years later, France fell to the Germans. Alone and in danger, penniless and cut off from contact with his family in Poland, Justus fled south.
-
-
Rosenberg, Please focus
- By Jess on 03-20-22
By: Justus Rosenberg
-
The Shanghai Free Taxi
- Journeys with the Hustlers and Rebels of the New China
- By: Frank Langfitt
- Narrated by: Frank Langfitt
- Length: 8 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this adventurous, original book, NPR correspondent Frank Langfitt describes how he created a free taxi service - offering rides in exchange for illuminating conversation - to go beyond the headlines and get to know a wide range of colorful, compelling characters representative of the new China. They include folks like "Beer", a slippery salesman who tries to sell Langfitt a used car; Rocky, a farm boy turned Shanghai lawyer; and Chen, who runs an underground Christian church and moves his family to America in search of a better, freer life.
-
-
Too political
- By dah551 on 06-26-19
By: Frank Langfitt
-
Oracle Bones
- A Journey Through Time in China
- By: Peter Hessler
- Narrated by: Peter Berkrot
- Length: 18 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A century ago, outsiders saw China as a place where nothing ever changes. Today, the country has become one of the most dynamic regions on earth. In Oracle Bones, Peter Hessler explores the human side of China's transformation, viewing modern-day China and its growing links to the Western world through the lives of a handful of ordinary people.
-
-
Great Book, except for the narration.
- By DMH on 11-09-10
By: Peter Hessler
-
On the Run in Nazi Berlin
- A Memoir
- By: Bert Lewyn, Bev Saltzman Lewyn - contributor
- Narrated by: Jonathan Davis, Suzanne Toren
- Length: 12 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Berlin, 1942. The Gestapo arrest 18-year-old Bert Lewyn and his parents, sending the latter to their deaths and Bert to work in a factory making guns for the Nazi war effort. Miraculously tipped off the morning the Gestapo round up all the Jews who work in the factories, Bert goes underground. He finds shelter sometimes with compassionate civilians, sometimes with people who find his skills useful and sometimes in the cellars of bombed-out buildings.
-
-
NOT YOUR USUAL STORY ABOUT THE NAZIS...FANTASTIC!
- By Steve on 03-21-19
By: Bert Lewyn, and others
-
The Cubans
- Ordinary Lives in Extraordinary Times
- By: Anthony DePalma
- Narrated by: Robertson Dean, Anthony DePalma
- Length: 12 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Cubans today, most of whom have lived their entire lives under the Castro regime, are hesitantly embracing the future. In his new book, Anthony DePalma, a veteran reporter with years of experience in Cuba, focuses on a neighborhood across the harbor from Old Havana to dramatize the optimism as well as the enormous challenges that Cubans face: a moving snapshot of Cuba with all its contradictions as the new regime opens the gate to the capitalism that Fidel railed against for so long.
-
-
The real Cuba
- By Tinkerbell on 10-11-20
By: Anthony DePalma
-
The Spymaster of Baghdad
- A True Story of Bravery, Family, and Patriotism in the Battle Against ISIS
- By: Margaret Coker
- Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell
- Length: 10 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Spymaster of Baghdad tells the dramatic yet intimate account of how a covert Iraqi intelligence unit called “the Falcons” came together against all odds to defeat ISIS. The Falcons, comprised of ordinary men with little conventional espionage background, infiltrated the world’s most powerful terrorist organization, ultimately turning the tide of war against the terrorist group and bringing safety to millions of Iraqis and the broader world.
-
-
Worth every penny
- By Michelle on 04-20-21
By: Margaret Coker
-
Resistance Women
- A Novel
- By: Jennifer Chiaverini
- Narrated by: Saskia Maarleveld
- Length: 20 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From the New York Times best-selling author of Mrs. Lincoln’s Dressmaker, an enthralling historical saga that recreates the danger, romance, and sacrifice of an era and brings to life one courageous, passionate American - Mildred Fish Harnack - and her circle of women friends who waged a clandestine battle against Hitler in Nazi Berlin.
-
-
One of THE best historical fiction WW2 books!
- By JeanAnn Trombley on 06-04-19
-
The Ungrateful Refugee
- What Immigrants Never Tell You
- By: Dina Nayeri
- Narrated by: Dina Nayeri
- Length: 10 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Aged eight, Dina Nayeri fled Iran along with her mother and brother and lived in the crumbling shell of an Italian hotel-turned-refugee camp. Eventually, she was granted asylum in America. She settled in Oklahoma, then made her way to Princeton University. In this book, Nayeri weaves together her own vivid story with the stories of other refugees and asylum seekers in recent years, bringing us inside their daily lives and taking us through the different stages of their journeys, from escape to asylum to resettlement.
-
-
Amazing story of resilience and compassion
- By PAH on 09-06-19
By: Dina Nayeri
-
Tunnel 29
- The True Story of an Extraordinary Escape Beneath the Berlin Wall
- By: Helena Merriman
- Narrated by: Helena Merriman
- Length: 9 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the summer of 1962, a young student named Joachim Rudolph dug a tunnel under the Berlin Wall. Waiting on the other side in East Berlin were dozens of men, women, and children - all willing to risk everything to escape.
-
-
Gripping
- By Matthew on 09-09-21
By: Helena Merriman
-
All the Frequent Troubles of Our Days
- The True Story of the American Woman at the Heart of the German Resistance to Hitler
- By: Rebecca Donner
- Narrated by: Rebecca Donner
- Length: 13 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Born and raised in Milwaukee, Mildred Harnack was twenty-six when she enrolled in a PhD program in Germany and witnessed the meteoric rise of the Nazi party. In 1932, she began holding secret meetings in her apartment—a small band of political activists that by 1940 had grown into the largest underground resistance group in Berlin. She recruited working-class Germans into the resistance, helped Jews escape, plotted acts of sabotage, and collaborated in writing leaflets that denounced Hitler and called for revolution.
-
-
Riveting narrative non fiction
- By Sarah Q on 10-22-21
By: Rebecca Donner
-
The Grey Men
- Pursuing the Stasi into the Present
- By: Ralph Hope
- Narrated by: B. J. Harrison
- Length: 11 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
By 1990, the Berlin Wall had fallen and the East German state security service folded. During 40 years, they had amassed more than a billion pages in manila files detailing the lives of their citizens. Overnight, almost 100,000 Stasi employees, many of them experienced officers with access to highly personal information, found themselves unemployed. This is the story of what they did next.
-
-
Very Enlightening
- By Katy on 07-09-22
By: Ralph Hope