Discover the Best Sellers Audiobooks in History, 20th Century

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Title: Retribution

Subtitle: The Battle for Japan, 1944 - 45

Author: Max Hastings

Narrator: Simon Vance

Format: Unabridged

Length: 27 hrs and 47 mins

Language: English

Release date: 09-16-15

Publisher: Random House Audio

Ratings: 4.5 of 5 out of 260 votes

Genres: History, 20th Century

Publisher's Summary:

By the summer of 1944 it was clear that Japan's defeat was inevitable, but how the drive to victory would be achieved remained unclear. The ensuing drama - that ended in Japan's utter devastation - was acted out across the vast theater of Asia in massive clashes between army, air, and naval forces. In recounting these extraordinary events, Max Hastings draws incisive portraits of MacArthur, Mao, Roosevelt, Churchill, Stalin, and other key figures of the war in the East. But he is equally adept in his portrayals of the ordinary soldiers and sailors caught in the bloodiest of campaigns. With its piercing and convincing analysis, Retribution is a brilliant telling of an epic conflict from a master military historian at the height of his powers.

Members Reviews:

Hastings does it again.

As usual Max Hastings creates a vivid account the World War II battle this seldom seen perspective on the Pacific campaign is unparalleled.

A superb study by one of the world's finest histor

Where does Retribution rank among all the audiobooks youve listened to so far?

Among the top 5

What was one of the most memorable moments of Retribution?

Discussion of Japanese behavior in China and Philippines

Which scene was your favorite?

Battle for Manila

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

no

Any additional comments?

Simon Vance is one of my favorite narrators. His clear diction, pacing, and intonation convey the author's intentions perfectly. Like many English speakers, however, his pronunciation of Japanese proper names is sometimes incorrect. For example, the name "Yamashita" is not pronounced as "Ya-ma-she-ta" it is pronounced as "Ya-ma-sh'ta;" "Yoshiko" is not "Yo-she-ko" it is "Yo-sh'ko;" and the two famous cities. Tokyo and Kyoto are pronounced as two syllables, not three: not "To-key-oh" but "To-quo" and not "Key-oh-to" but "Quo-to."

A Must Read!

If you could sum up Retribution in three words, what would they be?

Illuminating, Clear, Inspiring

What other book might you compare Retribution to and why?

As we go further away from the Pacific War - now about 70 plus years - new works are coming out all the time. Because of that, it is hard to find comparisons to this work.

Which character as performed by Simon Vance was your favorite?

None really stand out in my mind although, when I first heard Mr Vance go into character, I was both surprised and delighted.

Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?

Chapter 19 and its crystal clear summary of the events that lead to the dropping of the atomic bomb. There are so many wild and whacky revisions swirling around the decision to drop the bombs and Mr Hastings work confidently deals with these theories with his use of historical records and facts and puts emotional opinions aside. He does what good historians do, and that is getting inside the heads of the decision makers of the period bases on primary sources.

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Title: Once in a Great City

Subtitle: A Detroit Story

Author: David Maraniss

Narrator: David Maraniss

Format: Unabridged

Length: 13 hrs and 40 mins

Language: English

Release date: 09-15-15

Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio

Ratings: 4 of 5 out of 125 votes

Genres: History, 20th Century

Publisher's Summary:

As David Maraniss captures it with power and affection, Detroit summed up America's path to music and prosperity that was already past history.

It's 1963, and Detroit is on top of the world. The city's leaders are among the most visionary in America: Henry Ford II, the grandson of the first Ford; influential labor leader Walter Reuther; Motown's founder, Berry Gordy; the Reverend C.L. Franklin and his daughter, the amazing Aretha; Governor George Romney, Mormon and civil rights advocate; super car salesman Lee Iacocca; Mayor Jerome Cavanagh, a Kennedy acolyte; Police Commissioner George Edwards; Martin Luther King. It was the American auto makers' best year; the revolution in music and politics was underway. Reuther's UAW had helped lift the middle class.

The time was full of promise. The auto industry was selling more cars than ever before and inventing the Mustang. Motown was capturing the world with its amazing artists. The progressive labor movement was rooted in Detroit with the UAW. Martin Luther King delivered his "I Have a Dream" speech there two months before he made it famous in the Washington march.

Once in a Great City shows that the shadows of collapse were evident even then. Before the devastating riot, before the decades of civic corruption and neglect and white flight; before people trotted out the grab bag of rust-belt infirmities and competition from abroad to explain Detroit's collapse. From high labor costs to harsh weather, one could see the signs of a city's ruin. Detroit at its peak was threatened by its own design. It was being abandoned by the new world. Yet so much of what Detroit gave America lasts.

Members Reviews:

Detroit in its Heyday

Would you consider the audio edition of Once in a Great City to be better than the print version?

I consider the print version better because the material is interesting, but the author's narration is boring. He has a bland voice, and he reads in a monotone. It distracts from the content.

How could the performance have been better?

It could have been read by someone else.

If you were to make a film of this book, what would the tag line be?

The Detroit That Was

Amazing story and writing, AWFUL voice performance

Would you try another book from David Maraniss and/or David Maraniss?

Yes - this book is a fantastically written, well-detailed, well-researched story describing Detroit on the cusp of its current modern history.

Who would you have cast as narrator instead of David Maraniss?

Anyone but the current narrator. This reader was THE WORST AUDIOBOOK READER I'VE EVER HEARD.

Some congested, monotone, OBNOXIOUS sounding reader ruined the listening experience for me.

Great read

For those interested in Detroit or urban history, this is well-written book, focusing on themes of the struggles of the African-American community for equal rights, the rise of Motown, the UAW and the automobile companies, the Detroit mafia, and the failed bid to land the 1968 Olympics. But I am a Detroiter, so hearing the names of familiar people and places was part of my enjoyment of the book.

Takes me back...

I am the same age as the author but grew up several miles north of him in Detroit. I remembered some of the things he described in those pivotal years, and knew many of the stories; as an adult I got to know the union and political figures he talks about and know the places he describes.

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Title: Home Fires

Subtitle: The Story of the Women's Institute in the Second World War

Author: Julie Summers

Narrator: Juliet Mills

Format: Unabridged

Length: 12 hrs and 20 mins

Language: English

Release date: 09-15-15

Publisher: Penguin Audio

Ratings: 4.5 of 5 out of 54 votes

Genres: History, 20th Century

Publisher's Summary:

Soon to be a PBS Masterpiece series starring Samantha Bond (Downton Abbey) and Francesca Annis (Cranford)

Away from the frontlines of World War II, in towns and villages across Great Britain, ordinary women were playing a vital role in their country's war effort. As members of the Women's Institute, an organization with a presence in a third of Britain's villages, they ran canteens and knitted garments for troops, collected tons of rosehips and other herbs to replace medicines that couldn't be imported, and advised the government on issues ranging from evacuee housing to children's health to postwar reconstruction. But they are best known for making jam: From produce they grew on every available scrap of land, they produced 12 million pounds of jam and preserves to feed a hungry nation.

Home Fires, Julie Summers' fascinating social history of the Women's Institute during the war (when its members included the future Queen Elizabeth II along with her mother and grandmother), provides the remarkable and inspiring true story behind the upcoming PBS Masterpiece series that will be sure to delight fans of Call the Midwife and Foyle's War. Through archival material and interviews with current and former Women's Institute members, Home Fires gives us an intimate look at life on the home front during World War II.

Members Reviews:

Tread Carefully & Be Amazed

Ok let's cover the basics. This book--Home Fires (aka Jambusters in the UK) is not a novel, not the story from the PBS series and has nothing to do with the actresses on the photo of the dust jacket. Everyone seems a bit mixed up about this book. Home Fires--the PBS TV program--is a fictionalized account of WWII and the Women's Institute drawn from this nonfiction book.

This book is a very serious, crunch the numbers, fact dense look at what life was really like in Britain. I can't say or agree that the book just focuses on the WWII years. In reality, we get so much information that looks both back to the WWI years and forward to the UK still rationing and struggling in the 1950s. The scope is much broader than I had expected and offers a picture I had not experienced until now.

At once fascinating and at the same time almost repellant in its detail of day to day, down and dirty, war time home-front survival, farming, butchering of animals and vermin control. It is a book that I dreaded listening to--but at the same time couldn't stop thinking about and talking about.

It is a cautionary tale and a story of strong, can-do women who accomplished the impossible. The TV program does not begin to do justice to the actual scope and numbers presented in the reading. The whole thing was mind boggling and gave new meaning to the idea of preparedness and self-reliance for me.

Best to go into this book understanding that while the journal entries add a human face to the bare knuckle facts--there is zero fluff and cozy to be found. I finally understand the expression that would fix itself to my great aunt's face--a survivor of WWII London--when people would romanticize the war years. It all makes sense now.

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Title: The End of Tsarist Russia

Subtitle: The March to World War I and Revolution

Author: Dominic Lieven

Narrator: Shaun Grindell

Format: Unabridged

Length: 18 hrs and 54 mins

Language: English

Release date: 08-18-15

Publisher: Tantor Audio

Ratings: 4 of 5 out of 93 votes

Genres: History, 20th Century

Publisher's Summary:

World War I and the Russian Revolution together shaped the 20th century in profound ways. In The End of Tsarist Russia, acclaimed scholar Dominic Lieven connects for the first time the two events, providing both a history of the First World War's origins from a Russian perspective and an international history of why the revolution happened. Based on exhaustive work in seven Russian archives as well as many non-Russian sources, Dominic Lieven's work is about far more than just Russia. By placing the crisis of empire at its core, Lieven links World War I to the sweep of 20th-century global history. He shows how contemporary hot issues such as the struggle for Ukraine were already crucial elements in the run-up to 1914. By incorporating into his book new approaches and comparisons, Lieven tells the story of war and revolution in a way that is truly original and thought provoking.

Critic Reviews:

"A Russian scholar opens up new, even startling historical connections." (Kirkus Starred Review)

Members Reviews:

Informative History on European Geopolitics

I recommend this book for anyone who wants to know the underlying causes of WWI. To say Lieven's documentation of Russian foreign and domestic policy was thorough would be an understatement. However, given his use of a sliding timeline it can be hard to follow linearly. Overall, it was educational and enjoyable.

Interesting but flawed.

The subject matter is important, and the viewpoint, concentrating on the interplay among the geopolitics of empires, personalities, and ideology, is illuminating. However, there is much repetition, and the author frequently loses himself in over-detailed discussions of individual diplomats. The opening chapters, the final summarizing chapter, and the afterword are clear and fascinating, and full of provocative historical parallels.

The narrator was not a good choice for this material. His delivery was altogether too purring, insinuating, and over-inflected. I often listen while driving, and this reader made me sleepy.

Excellent and detailed

excellent, and detailed to the point of being tedious. ...yes it is the real deal

Phenomenal

A first rate history of interest to those looking for a deep dive into Russia, the origins of the First World War, or the tensions of empire and modernization before 1914.

A good book done in by bad narration.

As a history of Russia's entry into the Great War this volume sheds new light on a neglected part on that conflict. The actual content is novel and thought provoking. And now for the bad news, this history is nearly done in by a horrible reading.

There is an unfortunate default in many narrations that having a person with a sound footing in the queen's English is the sin qua non of a "serious" book and the acme of erudition. This particular book is an egregious example of such a bias.

Whatever class and "breeding" brought in by this particular voice actor, it is lost in the delivery. The delivery is sing-song, poorly paced and oddly delivered. The choice of verbal fry by the narrator can only be described as questionable at best and irritating at worst. The cut glass narration ends up in lacerating the delivery.

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Title: The Hotel on Place Vendome

Subtitle: Life, Death, and Betrayal at the Hotel Ritz in Paris

Author: Tilar J. Mazzeo

Narrator: Elizabeth Wiley

Format: Unabridged

Length: 8 hrs and 3 mins

Language: English

Release date: 08-04-15

Publisher: Tantor Audio

Ratings: 4 of 5 out of 46 votes

Genres: History, 20th Century

Publisher's Summary:

Set against the backdrop of the Nazi occupation of World War II, The Hôtel on Place Vendôme is the captivating history of Paris' world-famous Hôtel Ritz - a breathtaking tale of glamour, opulence, and celebrity and of dangerous liaisons, espionage, and resistance.

When France fell to the Germans in June 1940, the legendary Hôtel Ritz on the Place Vendôme - an icon of Paris frequented by film stars and celebrity writers, American heiresses and risqué flappers, playboys, and princes - was the only luxury hotel of its kind allowed in the occupied city by order of Adolf Hitler.

Tilar J. Mazzeo traces the history of this cultural landmark from its opening in fin de siècle Paris. At its center The Hotel on Place Vendôme is an extraordinary chronicle of life at the Ritz during wartime, when the hotel was simultaneously headquarters to the highest-ranking German officers, such as Reichsmarshal Hermann Göring, and home to exclusive patrons, including Coco Chanel. Mazzeo takes us into the grand palace's suites, bars, dining rooms, and wine cellars, revealing a hotbed of illicit affairs and deadly intrigue as well as stunning acts of defiance and treachery.

Rich in detail, The Hotel on Place Vendôme is a remarkable look at this extraordinary crucible where the future of postwar France - and all of postwar Europe - was transformed.

Critic Reviews:

"Readers will enjoy Mazzeo's fascinating collection of secretive, scheming historical characters, all under one elegant roof." (

Publishers Weekly)

Members Reviews:

A Reprint of "Much Ado About Nothing"

This is the most poorly written and superficial "history" book that I have ever read. It is so full of factual errors that it is almost impossible to absorb them, and the author makes statements throughout the book which have no truth whatsoever. They are far too numerous to mention, but a few of them include her statement that the American Assimilated Colonel Fred Wardenburg was called away from a hotel in Washington late one evening in 1944 and was at the Ritz Hotel in Paris the following morning. If his aircraft had flown by the fastest possible route, stopping only at Gander or Goose Bay, and then at Shannon or Prestwick, he would not have arrived in Paris until the following night.

This may seem trivial, but it is an example of the author's complete disinterest in facts. Another is her claim that Ernest Hemingway committed suicide ay his home in Key West. He did not. It was at his home in Ketchum, Idaho..

The author makes statements as though they were facts, when there is not a shred of truth to them. It is beyond pitiful, and a disgrace to literature.

It is sad that anyone would publish such a book., The publisher's proof reader left an unnecessary "t" after the word "only" on page 16. Very sloppy this. I wish I had my money back..

Interesting story and in depth character portrayal

This story was interesting to read if just for a glimpse back in time. Having lived in Paris for a few years you can only imagine all the little pockets of untold history. The Ritz in particular had a central role throughout not only World War II but for the better part of a century.

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Title: Nagasaki

Subtitle: Life After Nuclear War

Author: Susan Southard

Narrator: Traci Kato-Kiriyama

Format: Unabridged

Length: 12 hrs and 16 mins

Language: English

Release date: 07-28-15

Publisher: Recorded Books

Ratings: 4.5 of 5 out of 47 votes

Genres: History, 20th Century

Publisher's Summary:

A powerful and unflinching account of the enduring impact of nuclear war, told through the stories of those who survived.

On August 9, 1945, three days after the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, the United States dropped a second atomic bomb on Nagasaki, a small port city on Japan's southernmost island. An estimated 74,000 people died within the first five months, and another 75,000 were injured. Published on the 70th anniversary of the bombing, Nagasaki takes listeners from the morning of the bombing to the city today, telling the firsthand experiences of five survivors, all of whom were teenagers at the time of the devastation.

Susan Southard has spent years interviewing hibakusha ("bomb-affected people") and researching the physical, emotional, and social challenges of postatomic life. She weaves together dramatic eyewitness accounts with searing analysis of the policies of censorship and denial that colored much of what was reported about the bombing in both the United States and Japan.

A gripping narrative of human resilience, Nagasaki will help shape public discussion and debate over one of the most controversial wartime acts in history.

Members Reviews:

Truly, A Heartrending Horrorshow

I had to go back and reread, re listen to a whoooole lot of books on the Pacific war after I finished with Nagasaki: Life After Nuclear War because it's a book that'll have you conflicted as all get out as to whether the use of atomic weaponry was necessary.

And that's because Nagasaki covers the lives of survivors, just before the blast and follows them through the nightmare of the aftermath. It's a brutal and devastating book, unflinching, unapologetically forthright and honest. Because those bombs caused untold, well, here there is some told, suffering.

Southard doesn't downplay Japanese atrocities of the war, neither does she play them up. The cruel and the brutal were just the way. Nor does she downplay the brainwashing of the Japanese citizenry who would've gladly used the utterly feudal and futile bamboo spear as a weapon against those who would invade Japan's shores. But the horrors that follow the detonation make it clear that, no matter your politics, what happened to these individuals? Nobody but the most brutal deserves.

Well-written over a span of twelve years, Nagasaki is a book that'll have you conflicted then, perhaps, resolute. It's a 12+ hour horrorshow that'll leave you shaken, gasping for breath.

Great book

This book was well written and educational. I have never read or been taught anything about possible survivors from the event. Most Americans wasn't aware that their were two bombs dropped on two different cities in Japan.

Powerful read

Nuclear war consequences have become too abstract. We must bring survivors anecdotal stories to our political leaders. We must push for control and reduction of nuclear stockpiles.

This was a powerful read.

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Title: They Can Live in the Desert but Nowhere Else

Subtitle: A History of the Armenian Genocide

Author: Ronald Grigor Suny

Narrator: Eric Martin

Format: Unabridged

Length: 15 hrs and 35 mins

Language: English

Release date: 06-30-15

Publisher: Audible Studios

Ratings: 4.5 of 5 out of 40 votes

Genres: History, 20th Century

Publisher's Summary:

Starting in early 1915, the Ottoman Turks began deporting and killing hundreds of thousands of Armenians in the first major genocide of the 20th century. By the end of the First World War, the number of Armenians in what would become Turkey had been reduced by 90 percent - more than 1,000,000 people. A century later, the Armenian genocide remains controversial but relatively unknown, overshadowed by later slaughters and the chasm separating Turkish and Armenian versions of events. In this definitive narrative history, Ronald Suny cuts through nationalist myths, propaganda, and denial to provide an unmatched account of when, how, and why the atrocities of 1915-1916 were committed.

As it lost territory during the war, the Ottoman Empire was becoming a more homogenous Turkic-Muslim state, but it still contained large non-Muslim communities, including the Christian Armenians. The Young Turk leaders of the empire believed that the Armenians were internal enemies secretly allied to Russia and plotting to win an independent state. Suny shows that the great majority of Armenians were in truth loyal subjects who wanted to remain in the empire. But the Young Turks, steeped in imperial anxiety and anti-Armenian bias, became convinced that the survival of the state depended on the elimination of the Armenians. Suny is the first to explore the psychological factors as well as the international and domestic events that helped lead to genocide.

Drawing on archival documents and eyewitness accounts, this is an unforgettable chronicle of a cataclysm that set a tragic pattern for a century of genocide and crimes against humanity.

Members Reviews:

Well researched and balanced.

Where does They Can Live in the Desert but Nowhere Else rank among all the audiobooks youve listened to so far?

The trouble with modern political tomes is that they are often so one sided, one can't make any kind of judgement as to how events unfolded to allow the story to play out the way it did."They Can Live in the Desert, but Nowhere Else", does not suffer from this bias. It is meticulously researched and exposes the strengths and the weaknesses of the turn of the century Ottoman Empire and its peoples. I knew a little about the Armenian genocide of 1915, but almost nothing about the Ottoman Empire and its geo-political challenges. This book filled a lot of gaps in my knowledge and understanding. Though the subject matter is often disturbing, I found the book a compelling read. I highly recommend it.

A great neutral look into the Armenian genocide

I highly recommend the book to anyone wishing to know more on the subject. The author takes a fairly neutral look at the situation and goes to great lengths to explain the historical, cultural, and political atmosphere that lead to many of the different events covered.

My only complaint about the book would be the occassional censorship of events in a seeming attemp to remain objective and neutral in their explanation. At several points of the book, but not always, the author avoids going into much detail of the brutality used by both sides in their attacks against eachother in favor of statistics.

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Title: The Devil Is Here in These Hills

Subtitle: West Virginias Coal Miners and Their Battle for Freedom

Author: James Green

Narrator: Joel Richards

Format: Unabridged

Length: 11 hrs and 52 mins

Language: English

Release date: 05-19-15

Publisher: Audible Studios

Ratings: 4.5 of 5 out of 20 votes

Genres: History, 20th Century

Publisher's Summary:

From before the dawn of the 20th century until the arrival of the New Deal, one of the most protracted and deadly labor struggles in American history was waged in West Virginia. On one side were powerful corporations whose millions bought armed guards and political influence. On the other side were 50,000 mine workers, the nation's largest labor union, and the legendary "miners' angel", Mother Jones. The fight for unionization and civil rights sparked a political crisis verging on civil war that stretched from the creeks and hollows to the courts and the US Senate. In The Devil Is Here in These Hills, celebrated labor historian James Green tells the story of West Virginia and coal like never before.

The value of West Virginia's coalfields had been known for decades, and after rail arrived in the 1870s, industrialists pushed fast into the wilderness, digging mines and building company towns where they wielded nearly complete control over everyday life. The state's high-quality coal drove American expansion and industrialization. But for tens of thousands of laborers, including boys as young as 10, mining life showed the bitter irony of the state motto: "mountaineers are always free". Attempts to unionize were met with stiff resistance. Fundamental rights were bent, then broken, and the violence evolved from bloody skirmishes to open armed conflict as an army of miners marched to an explosive showdown. Extensively researched and told in vibrant detail, The Devil Is Here in These Hills is the definitive book on an essential chapter in the history of American freedom.

Members Reviews:

Coal Mining in America - A Standout

I know this is a book of limited appeal, but as a reference book for the history of coal mining in America, it is a treasure. With all its detail, this is not an easy book to just pick up and sit down to read. But there are a million things to learn here, and anyone who enjoys history, learning, and/or non-fiction will find this book totally rewarding.

Forgotten history of the labor movement

Folks interested in the history of the labor movement or socialism in America should enjoy this book. Despite an active interest in both, I was completely unaware of this piece of violent history involving West Virginia coal miners and the corporations they worked for at the beginning of the 20th Century. There was plenty of animosity on either side, and such noteworthy characters as Eugene Debs and Mother Jones played a part in the drama.

Excellent Account

This account of West Virginia mining and labor is the best history book I have read in a long while. I am about to move to this area of the country. Green's book is a great insight into, not only a cathartic period of American and West Virginia history, but also the people of the state and their staunch individualism. The prose delivers precise imagery and portrays with careful attention to important detail the features of the larger than life characters of the vast coal fields. The account is authoritative and thoroughly researched.

Great history!

As a native West Virginian with family history in the mines this was a look at a bleak period in the state's history. While I am one who believes unions have outlived their usefulness (the welfare state takes their place, this was definitely a time when the union saved people's lives.

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Title: The 1918 Spanish Flu Pandemic: The History and Legacy of the World's Deadliest Influenza Outbreak

Author: Charles River Editors

Narrator: Steve Marvel

Format: Unabridged

Length: 1 hr and 43 mins

Language: English

Release date: 05-08-15

Publisher: Charles River Editors

Ratings: 4 of 5 out of 27 votes

Genres: History, 20th Century

Publisher's Summary:

"One of the startling features of the pandemic was its sudden flaring up and its equally sudden decline, reminding one of a flame consuming highly combustible material, which died down as soon as the supply of the material was exhausted. There is every reason to believe that, within a few weeks of its onset, the infection was universally present in the nose and throat of the people, disseminated by mouth spray given off on talking by innumerable carriers and, in addition, by the coughing and sneezing of the sick. Susceptibility was very general, though it varied greatly in degree. Among those who escaped well marked sickness there are few who could not recall having had an occluded or running nose, or a raw feeling in the throat, or a cough, or aches and pains, at some time during the period of the prevalence of the disease, these probably representing the price such persons paid for their immunization." - Dr. Bernard Fantus

In many ways, it is hard for modern people living in first-world countries to conceive of a pandemic sweeping around the world and killing millions of people. And it is even harder to believe that something as common as influenza could cause such widespread illness and death. Although the flu still takes hundreds of lives each year, most of those lost are very young or old or ill with something else that had already weakened them. In fact, most people contract influenza at least once, and many suffer from the flu several times in their lives and survive it with a minimum amount of medical attention.

In 1918, the world was still in the throes of the Great War, the deadliest conflict in human history at that point, but while World War I would be a catastrophic war surpassed only by World War II, an unprecedented influenza outbreak that same year inflicted casualties that would make both wars pale in comparison.

Members Reviews:

Complacency can kill

historical places events, historical research, Charles River Editors

Excellent! A nonjudgmental thesis on the influenza pandemic of the early 20th century, with survivors accounts by people across the USA as well as published statements by the Surgeon General of the day. There are many lessons to be learned, and implied warnings to be noted, as well as an appreciation of what it was to have the young and healthy be stricken and and over 20% of those die within days. As a retired nurse, I certainly comprehend the exhaustion and despair experienced by those attempting to care for the sick.

I bought the audio on sale.

Steve Marvel gave a perfect reading!

very thorough

really enjoyed it and good narration, at least I thought it was an accurate account

Informative, comprehensive

While I have a better understanding of the scope of this tragedy after listening to the book, I think it could have been less statistical and contained fewer quotes from the head of the Public Heath Service and more personal stories to illustrate what a horrible thing it was for innocent American families. I would also like to see more about lessons learned that could perhaps prevent the same tragedy today.

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Title: The Bridge at Chappaquiddick

Author: Jack Olsen

Narrator: Kevin Sidenstricker

Format: Unabridged

Length: 9 hrs and 23 mins

Language: English

Release date: 04-23-15

Publisher: Crime Rant Classics and Notorious USA

Ratings: 3.5 of 5 out of 47 votes

Genres: History, 20th Century

Publisher's Summary:

And on its surface, the Chappaquiddick Incident (as it has infamously become known) was a simple but tragic traffic accident. However, its political fallout caused it to become the most speculated-upon car accident until Princess Diana's fatal ride, some 28 years later: Was Kennedy drunk? Was he trying to conceal an affair by deliberately killing Kopechne? Why did he wait for so long before reporting the accident? And who else was involved?

Olsen tells the tale with as much detail as was made available to him. Though there is apparently only a single living eye-witness to the accident (Kennedy himself, who described having the "sensation of drowning" on live television a week later), Olsen tracks down the incongruous statements made by others who were indirectly involved and comes to a potential conclusion which would be difficult to refute. There is no legal evidence of this conclusion, of course, but his alternate explanation of events turns much of the circumstantial evidence into a logic-of-sorts. And his presentation thereof causes one to reflect seriously on the nature of the official record of events as told through Kennedy's lips.

Members Reviews:

BRIDGE TO POSSIBLE UNDERSTANDING

I found this book to be much more engaging than did some reviewers. I had lived during the Chappaquiddick bridge incident. As I listened to Jack Olsen's account, I learned new details and was reminded of facts I had forgotten. I found the narrative engaging and easy to understand. I feel that the book is well balanced and well researched. I especially liked the conjecture (at the end) of the author as to the truth of what had happened. His speculation makes great sense, however since the death of Ted Kennedy, it is unlikely to be acknowledged, even if true.

Interesting Take on an Old Mystery

Jack Olsen examines the circumstances surrounding the incident that undoubtedly ended Ted Kennedy's run for the White House just as he was putting on his track shoes.

Olsen provides thoughtful, reasonable speculation on the events that led to the drowning death of Mary Jo Kopechne, suggesting an explanation that is far less salacious than any of the wild theories that abounded at the time.

The narrator's frequent mispronunciation of ordinary words such as "similar", (not "simular") is a sizeable distraction. And leave the accent to the natives.

Not a true crime book

This book, though a crime that went unpunished isn't written or told as a crime book. you'll learn quite a bit about Martha Vineyard you'll learn about the Kennedy boys and how they love to party and how people felt about them but very little is told about the True Crime very disappointed in this book I shall return it.

Ignore the negative reviews....

of "Bor-ing!" and that the book is largely speculation. It certainly is NOT boring. It is just that many readers now need a mutilated female corpse doused in body fluids to be entertained by true crime. You won't get that with Olsen. What you will get is thoughtful investigation and insight. And as to speculation: what else can one do in this case? But there is empty speculation, and there is speculation that might led to a break in a case. Olsen's is the latter sort.