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Title: Operation Nimrod

Subtitle: The Iranian Embassy Siege

Author: Russell Phillips

Narrator: Phillip J Mather

Format: Unabridged

Length: 3 hrs and 19 mins

Language: English

Release date: 09-21-15

Publisher: Shilka Publishing

Ratings: 4 of 5 out of 18 votes

Genres: History, 20th Century

Publisher's Summary:

On April 29, 1980, British police assured Iran that their embassy was secure. The very next day, terrorists stormed the embassy and took 26 hostages. With the Iranian government willing to let the hostages become martyrs, and the British government only willing to talk if the terrorists surrendered, 26 lives hung in the balance.

What followed was six days of tension and terror. It was finally ended when the SAS launched a daring rescue mission, broadcast live on television. Millions held their breath, waiting to see the outcome of Operation Nimrod.

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Title: Duc, 3rd Edition: Triumph of the Absurd

Subtitle: A Reporter's Love for the Abandoned People of Vietnam

Author: Uwe Siemon-Netto

Narrator: Steve Miller

Format: Unabridged

Length: 8 hrs and 24 mins

Language: English

Release date: 07-23-15

Publisher: NRP Books

Ratings: 4.5 of 5 out of 2 votes

Genres: History, 20th Century

Publisher's Summary:

Almost half a century ago, a young reporter from Germany arrived in still-glamorous Saigon to cover the Vietnam War over a period of five years. In this memoir, he tells the story of how he fell in love with the Vietnamese people. He praises the beauty, elegance, and feistiness of their women. He describes blood-curdling Communist atrocities and fierce combat scenes he witnessed. He introduces a striking array of characters: heroes, villains, statesmen and spooks, hilarious eccentrics, street urchins, and orphans herding water buffalos.

He shows how professional malpractice by US media stars, such as Walter Cronkite, turned the military victory of American and South Vietnamese forces during the 1968 Tet Offensive into a political defeat. He mourns the countless innocent victims of the Communist conquest of South Vietnam, which was the grim consequence of its abandonment by the United States. Thus, he argues, the wrong side won. Finally, with the eyes on Afghanistan, he poses a harrowing question: Are democratic societies, with their proclivity for self-indulgence, politically and psychologically equipped to win a protracted war against a totalitarian foe?

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Title: Scarface vs. Eliot Ness and the Untouchables

Subtitle: The Lives and Legacies of Al Capone and Eliot Ness

Author: Charles River Editors

Narrator: John Skinner

Format: Unabridged

Length: 2 hrs and 39 mins

Language: English

Release date: 07-15-15

Publisher: Charles River Editors

Ratings: 4 of 5 out of 5 votes

Genres: History, 20th Century

Publisher's Summary:

"Unquestionably, it was going to be highly dangerous. Yet I felt it was quite natural to jump at the task. After all, if you don't like action and excitement, you don't go into police work. And, what the hell, I figured, nobody lives forever!" - Eliot Ness

On February 14, 1929, members of Bugs Moran's North Side gang arrived at a warehouse on North Clark Street in Chicago, only to be approached by several police officers. The officers then marched them outside up against a wall, pulled out submachine guns and shotguns, and gunned them all down on the spot. A famous legend is that one of the shot men, Frank Gusenberg, dying from 14 gunshot wounds, told police that nobody shot him. Though Gusenberg's statement is probably apocryphal, nobody opened their mouths.

Nobody was ever convicted for the "Saint Valentine's Day Massacre," the most famous gangland hit in American history, but it's an open secret that it was the work of America's most famous gangster, Al Capone. Indeed, "Scarface" has captured the nation's popular imagination since Prohibition, managing to be the most notorious gangster in America while living a very visible and high profile life in Chicago.

Born a Brooklyn tough, Capone engaged in a life of crime even as a teenager and had come to Chicago as a young man to smuggle liquor during Prohibition. Allying himself with Johnny Torrio, Capone began to accumulate power almost as quickly as he accumulated a reputation for being merciless, and after an attempted hit severely injured Torrio, Capone's rise to gangland supremacy was ensured.

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Title: The Siege of Leningrad

Subtitle: The Greatest Battles in History

Author: Charles River Editors

Narrator: Tom McElroy

Format: Unabridged

Length: 1 hr and 29 mins

Language: English

Release date: 07-10-15

Publisher: Charles River Editors

Ratings: 5 of 5 out of 4 votes

Genres: History, 20th Century

Publisher's Summary:

"The city is dead. There is no electricity, no trams. Warm rooms are rare. No water. Almost the only form of transport is sleds, carrying corpses in plain coffins, covered with rags or half clothed. Daily, six to eight thousand die. The city is dying as it has lived for the last half year - clenching its teeth." (Nikolai Markevich's diary entry on January 24, 1942.)

The casualties inflicted on all sides during World War II nearly defy belief and, even today, estimates of the number of dead differ by tens of millions of people. Amid all of the destruction and carnage, perhaps nothing symbolizes the war quite like the Siege of Leningrad, one of the longest sieges in history and by far the deadliest.

When the Soviet-Nazi nonaggression pact of 1939 was broken by a German offensive against Russia, the surprised Red Army was quickly driven eastward away from the border with Poland, and Russian forces found themselves in a desperate attempt to defend major Russian cities from the Germany invaders. Leningrad, which had a population of roughly three million on the eve of the German attack, was one of the victims of the Russian unpreparedness, but once the siege began in the fall of 1941, the Soviets knew they were in a desperate struggle to the death. In fact, the Russians wouldn't have even been given a chance to surrender if they had wanted to, because the orders to the German forces instructed them to completely raze the city: "After the defeat of Soviet Russia, there can be no interest in the continued existence of this large urban center.... Following the city's encirclement, requests for surrender negotiations shall be denied, since the problem of relocating and feeding the population cannot and should not be solved by us...."

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Title: The Greatest Battles in History

Subtitle: The Battle of Stalingrad

Author: Charles River Editors

Narrator: Tom McElroy

Format: Unabridged

Length: 1 hr and 24 mins

Language: English

Release date: 07-06-15

Publisher: Charles River Editors

Ratings: 4.5 of 5 out of 2 votes

Genres: History, 20th Century

Publisher's Summary:

"Approaching this place, soldiers used to say: 'We are entering hell.' And after spending one or two days here, they say: 'No, this isn't hell, this is ten times worse than hell.'" - Soviet general Vasily Chuikov

World War II was fought on a scale unlike anything before or since in human history, and the unfathomable casualty counts are attributable in large measure to the carnage inflicted between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union during Hitler's invasion of Russia and Stalin's desperate defense. The invasion came in 1941 following a nonaggression pact signed between the two in 1939, which allowed Hitler to focus his attention on the west without having to worry about an attack from the eastern front. While Germany was focusing on the west, the Soviet Union sent large contingents of troops to the border region between the two countries, and Stalin's plan to take territory in Poland and the Baltic States angered Hitler. By 1940, Hitler viewed Stalin as a major threat and had made the decision to invade Russia: "In the course of this contest, Russia must be disposed of...Spring 1941. The quicker we smash Russia the better." (Hoyt, p. 17)

The surprise achieved by the German invasion in 1941 allowed their armies to advance rapidly across an incredibly wide front, but once winter set in, the two sides had to dig in and brace for German sieges of Russian cities. In the spring of 1942, Germany once more made inroads toward Stalingrad, Stalin's own pet city. Not surprisingly, he ordered that it be held no matter what. There was more than vanity at stake though. Stalingrad was all that stood between Hitler and Moscow.

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Title: The Son Tay Raid

Subtitle: American POWs in Vietnam Were Not Forgotten, Revised Edition

Author: John Gargus

Narrator: Michael Giorgio

Format: Unabridged

Length: 10 hrs and 11 mins

Language: English

Release date: 06-26-15

Publisher: University Press Audiobooks

Ratings: 4 of 5 out of 7 votes

Genres: History, 20th Century

Publisher's Summary:

Part of the Williams-Ford Texas A&M University Military History series.

In May 1970 aerial photographs revealed what US military intelligence believed was a POW camp near the town of Son Tay, 23 miles west of North Vietnam's capital city. When American officials decided the prisoners were attempting to send signals, they set in motion a daring plan to rescue the more than 60 airmen thought to be held captive.

On November 20 a joint group of volunteers from US Army Green Berets and US Air Force Special Operations Forces perfectly executed the raid, only to find the prisoners' quarters empty; the POWs had been moved to a different location. Initially the Son Tay raid was a devastating disappointment to the men who risked their lives to carry it out. Many vocal critics labeled it as a spectacular failure of our nation's intelligence network. However, subsequent events proved that the audacity of the rescue attempt stunned the North Vietnamese, who implemented immediate changes in the treatment of their captives. The operation also restored the prisoners' faith that their nation had not forgotten them.

John Gargus not only participated in the planning phase of the Son Tay rescue but also flew as a lead navigator for the strike force. This revised edition incorporates the most recent information from raid participants and includes recent translations of North Vietnamese perspectives. No previous account of this top-secret action has given such a full account or such insight into both the execution and the aftermath of Son Tay.

The book is published by Texas A&M Press.

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Title: An Intrinsic Dereliction

Subtitle: The Ruin of Detroit

Author: Danny Bee

Narrator: Savannah Rivers

Format: Unabridged

Length: 4 hrs and 47 mins

Language: English

Release date: 06-22-15

Publisher: Daniel Lesher

Genres: History, 20th Century

Publisher's Summary:

During the "long, hot summer" of 1967, racial violence erupted in 159 cities all across America. From Tampa to Texas, Birmingham to Boston, Newark and New York, Cleveland, Chicago, East St. Louis...city after city exploded in strife.

Detroit, the "Model City", was thought to be safe.

It wasn't.

An Intrinsic Dereliction traces the story of the racist racial unrest, turmoil, and decay that has led Detroit, once the fourth-largest city in America and the fastest -rowing city in the world, to an unparalleled state of urban blight, neglect, and crime, a third-world city in the midst of America, rotted to its core.

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Title: The Port Chicago Disaster

Subtitle: The History of America's Deadliest Homeland Incident during World War II

Author: Charles River Editors

Narrator: Kelly Rhodes

Format: Unabridged

Length: 1 hr and 10 mins

Language: English

Release date: 06-22-15

Publisher: Charles River Editors

Ratings: 4 of 5 out of 4 votes

Genres: History, 20th Century

Publisher's Summary:

"The fact that these men were wearing the uniform of the United States Navy made no difference." (Steve Sheinkin, The Port Chicago 50: Disaster, Mutiny, and the Fight for Civil Rights)

In World War II, hundreds of thousands of American soldiers were killed across the world, whether in Japanese jungles, North African deserts, or European beaches. Given that backdrop and the sheer magnitude of the war, people understandably became desensitized to incidents and tragedies that cost hundreds of lives. This was undoubtedly the case with the notorious Port Chicago disaster, a munitions explosion in July 1944 that killed over 300 people and injured over 300 more, many of them navy sailors. Since the explosion took place just a little over a month after D-Day, not to mention the fact that a majority of the casualties were African American, little attention was paid to the tragedy. Among those who did, some believed the men had not been trained well enough while others said they were being pushed by their officers to race each other in work that should have been done slowly and carefully. The only thing everyone could agree on was that something went very wrong. If anything, the episode not only underscored the navy's segregation policies but also demonstrated just how pervasive racism was at the time. The disaster was so deadly that 15 percent of all African American naval casualties in the war occurred on and around the dock in California that day, and while many appreciated the work the soldiers did, others denigrated their efforts.

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Title: Long Is the Way and Hard

Subtitle: One Hundred Years of the NAACP

Author: Kevern Verney, Lee Sartain, Adam Fairclough

Narrator: Marcus D. Durham

Format: Unabridged

Length: 9 hrs and 24 mins

Language: English

Release date: 06-16-15

Publisher: University Press Audiobooks

Genres: History, 20th Century

Publisher's Summary:

The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) has been the leading and best known African American civil rights organization in the United States. It has played a major, and at times decisive, role in most of the important developments in the 20th century civil rights struggle. Drawing on original and previously unpublished scholarship from leading researchers in the United States, Britain, and Europe, this important collection of 16 original essays offers new and invaluable insights into the work and achievements of the association.

The book is published by The University of Arkansas Press.

Critic Reviews:

"The essays in

Long Is the Way and Hard represent some of the best of the emerging scholarship on the NAACP." (

The Journal of African American History)

"This volume contributes significantly to our understanding of the NAACP's history." (

Journal of Southern History)

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Title: The Cuban Missile Crisis: 13 Days That Brought the Cold War to the Brink

Author: Charles River Editors

Narrator: Cynthia O'Brien

Format: Unabridged

Length: 1 hr and 36 mins

Language: English

Release date: 06-09-15

Publisher: Charles River Editors

Ratings: 4.5 of 5 out of 4 votes

Genres: History, 20th Century

Publisher's Summary:

"For in the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children's future. And we are all mortal." (President John F. Kennedy, June 1963)

When young president Kennedy came to power in 1961, Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev was eager to test his mettle from the start. Khrushchev's belief that he could push the inexperienced American leader around grew in the wake of the Bay of Pigs fiasco and the inconclusive Vienna summit in June 1961 that left Kennedy complaining to his brother, Bobby, that Khrushchev was "like dealing with Dad. All give and no take."

After the events of the previous year, 1962 saw Khrushchev making his most bellicose decision. Still questioning Kennedy's resolve and attempting to placate the concerns of Cuban leader Fidel Castro following the failed Bay of Pigs invasion, Khrushchev attempted to place medium-range nuclear missiles in Cuba, just 90 miles off the coast of the United States. Though Castro warned him that it would seem like an act of aggression to the Americans, Khrushchev insisted, moving the missiles in quietly under the cover of darkness. The missiles could serve not only as a deterrent against any invasion of Cuba but also as the ultimate first-strike capability in the event of a nuclear war.

However, in October 1962, American spy planes discovered that the Soviets were building nuclear missile sites in Cuba, and intelligence officials informed Kennedy. It went without saying that nuclear missile sites located just miles off the coast of the American mainland posed a grave threat to the country. Find out how Kennedy responded.

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