Download the New Releases Audiobooks in History, Military

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Title: The Creators

Subtitle: A History of Heroes of the Imagination

Author: Daniel J. Boorstin

Narrator: Michael Jackson

Format: Abridged

Length: 6 hrs and 5 mins

Language: English

Release date: 03-15-02

Publisher: The Publishing Mills

Ratings: 3.5 of 5 out of 91 votes

Genres: History, World

Publisher's Summary:

In this engrossing book, Boorstin examines what people have added to the world: painting, sculpture, architecture, theology, philosophy, history, poetry, drama, literature, dance, music, and film.

In a narrative brimming with lively biographical sketches and illuminating anecdotes, Boorstin captures the remarkable history of artistic achievement in the West.

Here is a truly epic story, told with all the excitement, appreciation, and authority Boorstin brought to The Discoverers.

Critic Reviews:

"An enormously stimulating volume, an epic work of immeasurable riches...this eloquent, remarkable synthesis sets the framework of humanity's advance from darkness and ignorance." (Publishers Weekly)

"A remarkable achievement and a pleasure...an engrossing introduction to many of the greatest glories of the imagination and the intellect." (The New York Times)

Members Reviews:

abridge too far

I was disappointed in this title. I'd heard very good things about the book, so I suspect the real problem is with the recording being abridged. What's there is good, but it jumps from topic to topic somewhat randomly and doesn't go into anything with any depth. It has scared me off from purchasing The Discoverers as an audiobook; I'll probably try the print version instead.

No one should miss this book...

This book was recommended to me by a friend. It is one of the most interesting books of the history of ALL the creators. Most of it was new knowledge and told like a storyteller, which kept my attention all the time. I have relistened to parts of it, so that I can memorize this important information.

Full version would have been better!

It is a good book and is nicely written however, because the audio book is abridged, you lose a lot of the meaning compared to the actual book, of which I have both. It is nice, but if you actually want the entire message and less chaos, save you money and buy the actual written version.

Strange but beautiful

Would you consider the audio edition of The Creators to be better than the print version?

Toss up.

What other book might you compare The Creators to and why?

Coming of Age in the Milky Way : Timothy Ferris. Avail on Audible. Endearing portraits of the oddballs who just have to create and explore.

What about Michael Jacksons performance did you like?

Conversational tone, as if recounting old stories and characters. His delivery and the editing are herky jerky: this takes some getting used to be I've grown found of it, as it heightens the randomness and connectivity of creation.

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

Willingness to take both spirituality and religious figures seriously.

Any additional comments?

Great for listeners like me, who use non fiction audio as bedtime stories, and who draw inspiration from the details and influences in the great lives.

The Creators

Is there anything you would change about this book?

Boorstin is a brilliant, brilliant scholar. The audible version, however, did not quite have the some dynamism as reading the actual book.

Could you see The Creators being made into a movie or a TV series? Who should the stars be?

Maybe a PBS series.

Any additional comments?

Thank you for making this available.

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Title: Diamond

Subtitle: A Journey to the Heart of an Obsession

Author: Matthew Hart

Narrator: Daniel Gerroll

Format: Abridged

Length: 5 hrs and 46 mins

Language: English

Release date: 11-07-01

Publisher: Random House Audio

Ratings: 4 of 5 out of 126 votes

Genres: History, World

Publisher's Summary:

The geology of diamonds explains how hard it is to find them. Diamonds are accidents of nature, carbon crystals compressed deep underground billions of years ago; parts of them, it is even thought, may predate the Earth itself. They are also elusive, carried to the surface only in slender volcanoes known as "pipes," most of which are actually barren.

Weaving science and history throughout his story, Hart follows the diamond trail around the globe - from the basement room where Gabi Tolkowsky, the world's greatest cutter, faced the 599-carat Centenary diamond, to the fog-bound smugglers' paradise of Africa's Diamond Coast, to the London sales rooms of De Beers, which manages the longest-running cartel in modern business history - encountering characters as memorable as the stones they seek.

By revealing the layers and inner workings of the diamond industry, and the inherent excitement and human drama that sustain it, Matthew Hart has captured the essence of an exotic substance and its world as surely as a diamond captures light: bending it, reflecting it, and returning it in a blaze of color.

Critic Reviews:

"Hart tells a great, great story while explaining one of the world's most mysterious industries. The book is first-rate and immensely readable." - (Sebastian Junger, author of Fire and The Perfect Storm

"Every chapter opened my eyes to another intriguing nook of this hidden world. Next to the diamond hunters, Silicon Valley's entrepreneurs and Wall Street's traders seem cautious and small time." - (Po Bronson, author of The Nudist on the Late Shift)

Members Reviews:

One of the best...

A documentary with the pace and appeal of a novel, this book delves into the history and detail of the diamond industry. De Beers' control of the diamond trade remains one of the most complete monopolies in the world, yet it also remains one of the most secretive groups in the world. This work takes you on a journey, tracing some of the famous diamonds through history as well as explaining the process that creates the diamonds we see today in jewelry stores. Terrific listening material!

Informative and Entertaining

This audio book was wonderful. It is exciting, informative, and dramatic. It is more like a novel than anything else, with villians, good guys, and even a heroine. The science and engineering involved are clearly explained without useless jargon. And the narrator is perfect for the role. One of the best audio books I have ever heard. Highest rating.

a

Great story about diamonds. Where they come from, how to find them, the development of the modern diamond industry...composed of third world countries, rich companies, flamboyant characters and sleight of hand. Story keeps moving along, not a boring moment.

Spectacular Story

I saw the female geologist (age 25) interviewed in 2000 after the big discovery in Canada, and a discussion of this book. I was happy to find it on audible. It does not disappoint. For the negative reviews, remember most of us know nothing about that 2K ring on our finger. The real stories ranging from the infancy of African pipe to Brazil, Australia and Canada, together with the known, unknown, legal and illict tales of jewels and those whose hands they slipped through is wonderful. I especially like the knowledgeable details the author provides...

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Title: Playing God

Subtitle: Seven Fateful Moments When Great Men Met to Change the World

Author: Charles Mee

Narrator: James Armstrong

Format: Unabridged

Length: 10 hrs and 30 mins

Language: English

Release date: 11-07-00

Publisher: Blackstone Audio, Inc.

Ratings: 2.5 of 5 out of 25 votes

Genres: History, Military

Publisher's Summary:

Throughout time, leaders at the pinnacle of power - popes and kings, presidents and prime ministers, czars and generals - have subscribed to the belief that they can change the course of history, not by the force of arms, but through charm, skillful negotiation, honesty, deceit, and all the other arts of peaceful human exchange. Charles Mee, Jr. reproduces seven singular moments when heads of state have come together to decide the future of the world. He examines the uses of summitry, from the directness of Pope Leo's confrontation with Attila the Hun near Rome to Henry VIII and Francis I's meeting on the Field of the Cloth of Gold; from the surprise encounter between Cortes and Montezuma to the intricacies negotiated by Metternich and Talleyrand at the Congress of Vienna; from the ironies of Wilson, Clemenceau and Lloyd George's summit at the Paris Peace Conference to the unintended consequences of Churchill, Stalin and Roosevelt's gathering at Yalta; and finally to Gorbachev's desperate appeal to the G7 nations in London to be included in their powerful club. Mee peeks through the curtains of diplomacy to reveal the hidden agendas and the glorious personalities at work. Taken together, these seven fateful moments are bracing and humbling reminders of the enormous complexity and mystery of human affairs.

©1993 by Charles L. Mee, Jr.; (P)1997 by Blackstone Audiobooks

Members Reviews:

Very poor sound quality

I have just started listening to this book and am very suprised by the incredibly poor sound quality. It sounds as if it was done on an old cassette recorder. This makes listeing it it very distracting. I'm going to keep listening to see if the content overcomes the lack of quality, but if this might be an issue for you, make sure you listen to the sample before you buy it -- I wish I had!

I am not sure about this book...

I can't comment on the content of this book because the recording quality was SO poor that I never even made it through the first hour! I was very disappointed to waste a credit on this title, and I would encourage you not to make the same mistake.

Audio...

To be blunt... the audio quality makes the listening of the book... sound like a cassette player just as it's running out of juice... to the point that one starts to tune it out... whether the book is any good, didn't stick around to find out...

Audio Quality

Overall a good book, but the worst audio quality I have ever experienced from Audible. There were points where I thought I was listning to a badly warped LP record that kept bouncing the needle backwards. A little editing would have shortened the book by at least an hour. Also, there were times when the audio quality was so bad that listning in my car was difficult due to depressed high frequency response. As I said, a good book but listning was not as pleasureable as it should have been.

Has its moments

This book has a few great moments that make plodding through the rest barely worth it. The sound quality is very poor, and the work of a pretty good reader is diminished by poor editing.

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Title: Vietnam

Subtitle: Why We Should Have Won

Author: Dan Lyons

Narrator: Jeff Riggenbach

Format: Unabridged

Length: 3 hrs and 30 mins

Language: English

Release date: 12-16-99

Publisher: Blackstone Audio, Inc.

Ratings: 4 of 5 out of 26 votes

Genres: History, Military

Publisher's Summary:

Dan Lyons resigned as Dean at Gonzaga University to become the free world's leading advocate of winning the war in Vietnam, visiting there 17 times from 1963 to 1975. His 500 daily radio and TV broadcasts, plus his nationwide weekly columns and debates on college campuses, reached millions every week for 12 years. In this book he presents a brilliant exposé of why we lost the war, and why and how we should have won. Lyons debated Daniel Ellsberg and Jane Fonda, went fact-finding with Ross Perot, was consulted by Richard Nixon, and numbered among his friends leaders such as Chiang Kai-Shek. General Westmoreland once called him "the biggest hawk in the United States," while Newsweek fumed that Lyons was a "sulphurous advocate of rightist views." No one is more adept at putting Vietnam in perspective.

©1993 Dan Lyons (P)1993 Blackstone Audiobooks

Members Reviews:

Great Book! helps understand our current war

Very informative. I was able to draw a huge number of parallels between Vietnam and Iraq and therefore better understand what is going on today. The anti-war sentiment used in the election cycle as a political weapon is identical between the two wars. The media and liberals are both leading Americans to false conclusions in both wars. America never would have pulled out of Vietnam if we would have understood the truth about it and that we could have won it easily. The "quagmire" thing was totally an invention of politics, not millitary leadership - whose hands were tied by our liberal politicians. We will never pull out of Iraq if we know how there really is an evil ideology we are fighting. We are winning. It is worth it. Iraq is a huge strategic advantage for protecting the U.S. at an amazingly low cost in relative terms of life and treasure. The Iraqi's, like the vietnamese, want the freedom and prosperity that we will bring them IF we stick it out for the long haul like we did in South Korea (we still have 30,000 troops there and they only recently achieved a stable gov't in 1992 (40 years!))

Great Step by Step account

Puts into perspective all the issues, with a great step by step account. Has made me re-think why the war was fought and understand the politics and reasons for the outcome.

The truth is out

This book informs the public what all of us Viet Nam Vets knew all along. The war could have been won if the U.S. Press and Media would have wanted us to win it.

A Very Good Read

If you?re a history buff and want something less pedestrian than usual, this is for you. It presents the ?other? side of the picture for the Vietnam War. A side not often let speak in our anti American politically correct world. And please, I don?t want to sound like Ronald Reagan here, but as a previously serving British Officer (never having served in any such horrific engagement), and a student of military history this recording offers a very different and well researched view point than the accepted one by people that were there.

Although the micro management of the conflict was reprehensible, and behaviour on both sides quite disgraceful, the recording is not an apology for the event, but more a clarification of the evidential truth that ?popular? history can so often misplace when written close to the pain of the time.

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Title: The Blenheim Bomber Story

Subtitle: Flying Machines and Their Heroes, Book 1

Author: Errol Kennedy

Narrator: Raymond Baxter

Format: Unabridged

Length: 58 mins

Language: English

Release date: 08-12-15

Publisher: Lundarien Press

Ratings: 3 of 5 out of 5 votes

Genres: History, Military

Publisher's Summary:

This book tells the fascinating story of the world's only airworthy Bristol Blenheim bomber, heroically restored to its original glory by ex-RAF pilot Graham Warner and his dedicated team over the course of two decades. The Blenheim Bomber story will take you back to the plane's beginnings, its role during World War II and the long-lasting effect it had on its crews. Relive the enthralling and nostalgic story of this mechanical hero, long forgotten and unsung, brought back to life by the Aircraft Restoration Company based at the Imperial War Museum in Duxford, Cambridgeshire.

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Title: Packed for the Wrong Trip

Subtitle: A New Look inside Abu Ghraib and the Citizen-Soldiers Who Redeemed America's Honor

Author: W. Zach Griffith

Narrator: Stephen Hoye

Format: Unabridged

Length: 7 hrs and 42 mins

Language: English

Release date: 07-29-16

Publisher: Audible Studios

Genres: History, Military

Publisher's Summary:

How an Unprepared, Undertrained Group of Maine National Guard Troops Went to Abu Ghraib to Fix the Irreparable

The prison at Abu Ghraib was still a relatively unknown part of America's War on Terror when - with no special training and their gear lost somewhere between the United States and Baghdad - the 152nd Field Artillery Battalion of the Maine National Guard was sent there to serve as guards in February 2004. Just before their arrival, the now infamous photos of the abuses suffered by the prisoners hit the world stage. Abu Ghraib became the focal point not only for global condemnation, but for the insurgents' outrage.

Over the next year, the 152nd would come under attack by snipers, suicide bombers, vehicle-borne IEDs, and constant rocket and mortar fire. Yet at the same time, the Mainers would form close bonds with some of the prisoners, among them an Iraqi boy struck by a mortar in one of two mass casualty events, and Kamal, a community leader who acts as an envoy between the detainees and the soldiers and yet is assassinated after his release for helping the Americans.

The men of the 152nd were an eclectic group of citizen-soldiers caught in one of the darkest corners of the war in Iraq. Packed for the Wrong Trip tells the true story of how they relied on each other and their own ingenuity to survive and to transform one of the most inhumane detainee centers into a functioning, humane prison - or as close to one as you could get when tucked between Baghdad and the insurgent stronghold of Fallujah.

Members Reviews:

This book exposes the reader to realities that exist which ...

This book exposes the reader to realities that exist which run contrary to the general public's perception of how US military operations are conducted and the perception as to how US military personnel are trained and supported. I was shocked at these realities and proud of our troops ability to adapt and persevere.

Very informative. I personally know Kelly Thorndike and know ...

Very informative. I personally know Kelly Thorndike and know how hurt physically and emotionally he remains.

This book was a very personal journey

This book was a very personal journey for my husband and myself. Our youngest son, Sgt. Shawn Keyte, was part of the 152nd FA. A small unit of Citizen Soldiers from Maine that literally âPacked For The Wrong Trip.â When we said our goodbyes, and watched our son drive away on the bus that cold January day, we had no idea he would end up in one of the most dangerous and horrific places in Iraq. The title of this book, written by Maine author and combat correspondent, W. Zach Griffith, befits the situation this unit was placed in from beginning to end. An intimate lesson in the history of errors made by our government, and of Soldiers determined to do the right thing.

Griffith takes you through the gates of Abu Ghraib Prison, into what has been described by all those who were there as Hell. That name becomes a reality with a vivid and shocking intensity within the three short pages of the opening chapter. You now are on a journey that at times seems surreal. He reveals a war we were not prepared to fight and with soldiers not given the tools to do so. This small group of Citizen Soldiers from Maine began their duty in a place which seemed to have no boundaries, even within prison walls.

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Title: The Quick and the Dead

Subtitle: Fallen Soldiers and Their Families in the Great War

Author: Richard Van Emden

Narrator: Allen O'Reilly

Format: Unabridged

Length: 9 hrs and 16 mins

Language: English

Release date: 03-14-13

Publisher: Audible Studios for Bloomsbury

Ratings: 3.5 of 5 out of 3 votes

Genres: History, Military

Publisher's Summary:

At the end of the First World War more than 192,000 wives had lost their husbands and nearly 400,000 children had lost their fathers. A further half a million children had lost one or more siblings. Appallingly, one in eight wives died within a year of receiving news of their husband's death. Few people remained unscathed and the effects of the conflict are still with us. The Quick and the Dead will pay tribute to the families who were left to suffer at home while their husband, fathers, and sons went off to fight, and the generations that followed. Through the stories in this groundbreaking history, we realize not just what became of our grandfathers but how their experiences influenced the children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren of a generation that they left at home.

Against all the odds some stories ended happily - missing fathers did return, men thought to be dead returned from prisoner of war camps to a joyous reunion. For others the loss, while difficult to bear at the time, gave them an independence, drive, and ambition that ensured that their lives were successful and a fitting tribute to those who died. Very few people know that only the first minute's silence on Armistice Day is in memory of the dead of the Great War and all the subsequent wars. The second minute is for the living, the survivors of the war, and the wives and the children they left behind.

Through a unique collection of over 50 interviews, private diaries, and a remarkable collection of unpublished letters written by the soldiers to their families back home, The Quick and the Dead is a history of those who are commonly forgotten and neglected when the fallen are remembered on Armistice Day.

Members Reviews:

Poor Narration

How could the performance have been better?

The reader did that - he read the words, but there was nary a pause throughout the book, mushing together sentence after sentence, paragraph after paragraph. He plunged ahead as if there was an urgency to get to the end, with little inflection, so that there was no separation between thoughts and sections. And with such a poignant story, it took the life out of the book for me. I liked the book that was written but not the one that was read.

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Title: A Mad Catastrophe

Subtitle: The Outbreak of World War I and the Collapse of the Habsburg Empire

Author: Geoffrey Wawro

Narrator: Geoffrey Wawro

Format: Unabridged

Length: 13 hrs and 58 mins

Language: English

Release date: 08-29-14

Publisher: Audible Studios

Ratings: 4 of 5 out of 93 votes

Genres: History, World

Publisher's Summary:

The Austro-Hungarian army that marched east and south to confront the Russians and Serbs in the opening campaigns of World War I had a glorious past but a pitiful present. Speaking a mystifying array of languages and lugging outdated weapons, the Austrian troops were hopelessly unprepared for the industrialized warfare that would shortly consume Europe. As prizewinning historian Geoffrey Wawro explains in A Mad Catastrophe, the doomed Austrian conscripts were an unfortunate microcosm of the Austro-Hungarian Empire itself - both equally ripe for destruction.

After the assassination of the Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand in June 1914, Germany goaded the Empire into a war with Russia and Serbia. With the Germans massing their forces in the west to engage the French and the British, everything - the course of the war and the fate of empires and alliances from Constantinople to London - hinged on the Habsburgs ability to crush Serbia and keep the Russians at bay. However, Austria-Hungary had been rotting from within for years, hollowed out by repression, cynicism, and corruption at the highest levels. Commanded by a dying emperor, Franz Joseph I, and a querulous celebrity general, Conrad von Hötzendorf, the Austro-Hungarians managed to bungle everything: their ultimatum to the Serbs, their declarations of war, their mobilization, and the pivotal battles in Galicia and Serbia. By the end of 1914, the Habsburg army lay in ruins and the outcome of the war seemed all but decided.

Drawing on deep archival research, Wawro charts the decline of the Empire before the war and reconstructs the great battles in the east and the Balkans in thrilling and tragic detail. A Mad Catastrophe is a riveting account of a neglected face of World War I, revealing how a once-mighty empire collapsed in the trenches of Serbia and the Eastern Front, changing the course of European history.

Members Reviews:

Good read

Geoffrey Wawro describes the death of the second sick man of Europe, Austria-Hungary. Beset by internal divisions amongst its many ethnic groups, especially between German Austria and Magyar Hungary, It's a miracle Austria-Hungary survived until 1918; it definitely wouldn't have done so without German support. A bonus star for being a WWI book 1) in English and 2) On a generally obscure subject area.

Wawro's Diatribe Against A-H Military Leadership

What made the experience of listening to A Mad Catastrophe the most enjoyable?

As I had previously purchased the book, I was re-familiarized with the depth of Wawro's disregard for anything and everything even remotely related to the Austro - Hungarian army's leadership before and during the First World War. After reading / listening to this litany of indictments I came away with the same persistent question, "Why would Wawro, after putting in prodigious research and formulating a central thesis for the book, really want to write it?"

Now, before hackles get raised and your eyeballs begin their arching movements in their sockets, I am very much aware that there is no written or unwritten rule that the author has to be sympathetic to his or her subject matter in order to write his or her book.

I guess the old saying "Let dead dogs decompose" or something to that effect... may be what I am weakly trying to convey.

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Title: Invisible Jews

Subtitle: Surviving the Holocaust in Poland

Author: Eddie Bielawski

Narrator: Norman Gilligan

Format: Unabridged

Length: 2 hrs and 47 mins

Language: English

Release date: 12-26-17

Publisher: Eddie Bielawski

Ratings: 5 of 5 out of 1 votes

Genres: History, World

Publisher's Summary:

I was born in the town of Wegrow in north-eastern Poland in 1938. Not a propitious time and place for a Jewish child to be born.

One memory that has been etched indelibly in my mind is the sight of the Nazi army marching toward Russia. Our house was located on the main road leading to the Russian frontier. Day and night they marched - soldiers, trucks, tanks, and more soldiers, in a never-ending line - an invincible force. I remember my father, holding me in his arms, saying to my mother, "Who is going to stop them? Certainly not the Russians."

One night, my father had a dream. In this dream he saw what he had to do: where to build the bunker, how to build it, and even its dimensions.

He would build a bunker under a wooden storage shed behind the house. It would be covered with boards, on top of which would be placed soil and bits of straw to render it invisible. To camouflage the entrance, he would construct a shallow box and fill it with earth and straw. Air would be supplied through a drain pipe buried in the earth. This was to be our Noah's Ark that would save us from the initial deluge.

It took my father three weeks to finish the job. When he was done, he took my mother and sister into the shed and asked them if they could find the trap door. When they could not, he was satisfied.

My mother prepared dry biscuits, jars of jam made out of beets, some tinned goods such as sardines, some sugar and salt. We placed two buckets in the bunker. One was filled with water, the other would serve as the latrine. We also took down some blankets, a couple of pillows and some warm clothing. We were ready.

For three long years, starting in 1941 when the Nazis started the deportations and mass killings, we hid in secret bunkers, dug in fields, under sheds and houses, or constructed in barn lofts. It seems the only way a Jew could survive in wartime Poland was to become invisible. So we became invisible Jews.

Members Reviews:

Fantastic story of survival...smart father...love that he dreamed of the bunker....

Amazing story of survival against all odds...that father was able to keep his family together, that he was dogged and determined, and maybe had some luck as well as divine protection....

Couldn't put down

I bought this book and finished it within 2 hours. I just couldn't put it down! A must read indeed!!

WOW! A Holocaust story which must be read.

Invisible Jews: Surviving the Holocaust in Poland is by Eddie Bielawski. Eddie was born in 1938 and is probably the youngest survivor who remembers anything about this time. He did have help with the first years from his parentsâ stories and his sisterâs remembrances. However, much of it he remembers on his own. This makes his memoir more remarkable. He writes from the perspective of a young child and his writing is clear and precise. He is able to pull the reader into his work in such a way that the reader has great empathy for the characters.

Eddie and his family survived the Holocaust by living in a series of dugouts and other hiding places that his Father and uncles built. His family consisted of his parents, his sister, four uncles, one aunt, and a grandmother. They all survived. Keeping a family of four alive by hiding was difficult and a family of ten almost impossible.

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Title: Final Voyage

Subtitle: The World's Worst Maritime Disasters

Author: Jonathan Eyers

Narrator: Matthew Waterson

Format: Unabridged

Length: 5 hrs and 48 mins

Language: English

Release date: 01-02-14

Publisher: Audible Studios for Bloomsbury

Ratings: 4 of 5 out of 18 votes

Genres: History, World

Publisher's Summary:

Everyone knows the story of the Titanic, but in terms of loss of life that catastrophe doesn't even figure as one of the 50 worst maritime disasters of the last three hundred years. The causes of disaster are legion: besides icebergs and enemy torpedoes, ships have been sunk by fire, explosions, flooding, capsizing, storms, collisions and human error.

Ships featured include: Wilhelm Gustloff - how history forgot the 10,000 killed. Lancastria - why Britain's worst disaster was covered up. Mont Blanc - the ship that destroyed a city. Sultana - triumph and tragedy on the Mississippi. Dona Paz - the deadliest disaster in living memory.

With disasters from all over the world, these are stories of the people - whether they lived or died - as well as the ships. They are stories of tragedy, war, heroism and cowardice, greed and sacrifice. Only for the lucky few were they also stories of rescue and survival.

Members Reviews:

A Captivating Listen

What made the experience of listening to Final Voyage the most enjoyable?

Like a masterful storyteller at a dinner party the author recounts the intriguing details of each disaster without getting bogged down providing an exhaustive litany of names, dates, and non-pertinent historical asides. This book is very captivating a casual listener like myself.

What was one of the most memorable moments of Final Voyage?

One particularly startling story in the book is that of the collision in the Halifax Harbor of the SS Mont-Blanc, a French vessel carrying a dangerous cargo of explosives and the Norwegian SS Imo. This accident resulted in the largest man-made explosion prior to the development of nuclear weapons.

A great listen!!

Compulsive listening and at times very moving.. excellent narration helps enormously I can thoroughly recommend this book!!