Get Best Sellers Audiobooks in Travel & Adventure, Adventure & Exploration

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Title: Great White Fathers

Author: John Taliaferro

Narrator: Jonathan Davis

Format: Unabridged

Length: 16 hrs and 27 mins

Language: English

Release date: 09-23-13

Publisher: Audible Studios

Ratings: 4 of 5 out of 2 votes

Genres: Bios & Memoirs, Artists, Writers, & Musicians

Publisher's Summary:

Gutzon Borglum, the sculptor of Mount Rushmore National Memorial, hoped that ten thousand years from now, when archaeologists came upon the four sixty-foot presidential heads carved in the Black Hills of South Dakota, they would have a clear and graphic understanding of American civilization.

Borglum, the child of Mormon polygamists, had an almost Ahab-like obsession with Colossalism - a scale that matched his ego and the era. He learned how to be a celebrity from Auguste Rodin; how to be a political bully from Teddy Roosevelt. He ran with the Ku Klux Klan and mingled with the rich and famous from Wall Street to Washington. Mount Rushmore was to be his crowning achievement, the newest wonder of the world, the greatest piece of public art since Phidias carved the Parthenon.

But like so many episodes in the saga of the American West, what began as a personal dream had to be bailed out by the federal government, a compromise that nearly drove Borglum mad. Nor in the end could he control how his masterpiece would be received. Nor its devastating impact on the Lakota Sioux and the remote Black Hills of South Dakota.

Great White Fathers is at once the biography of a man and the biography of a place, told through travelogue, interviews, and investigation of the unusual records that one odd American visionary left behind. It proves that the best American stories are not simple; they are complex and contradictory, at times humorous, at other times tragic.

Members Reviews:

Drilling into cultural history

The subtitle of this book suggests that it will focus on the carving of Mount Rushmore, but it covers a far more ambitious canvas. It is even more than an in-depth biography of Gutzon Borglum, the sculptor who executed the work. It sets the monument in the socio-political context of the United States at the time it was conceived and executed. In keeping with the supposedly ironic title, it bookends all of this with the perspective of the Lakota people, the ancestral owners of the mountain on which the faces are carved.

If you are looking for extensive technical details on how the sculpture was designed and executed, particularly stories of the cast of supporting characters who made it possible, you may wish to look elsewhere. The narrative of the carving is told essentially from the perspective of Borglum and the tortured path he followed to the project, including his abandonment of its predecessor on Stone Mountain, Georgia. Many of these details are not flattering to the sculptor, and sometimes seemed unnecessary, if not distracting, to the story of his great achievement. Still, there are plenty of fascinating revelations about the project's logistics, such as how the position of Jefferson's head was transposed.

If you are looking for an overview of how the Mt. Rushmore monument came to be, and why it is controversial to some, this is probably the best summary that could be achieved in one source.

For those planning a trip to Mt. Rushmore

If you are planning a trip to Mount Rushmore, I would strongly recommend this book. If you are not interested in a trip to Mt. Rushmore and just interested in American history during the late 1890's and the early part of the 20th century, I would also recommend this book. John Taliaferro, who I first came across in his recent biography of John Hay does a masterful job in telling the story of Gutzon Burglum and Mt. Rushmore but also so many other tales.

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Title: Travel Tales of Michael Brein: My Top 10

Subtitle: The Travel Psychologist Travel Tales Series

Author: Michael Brein

Narrator: Gary B. Roelofs

Format: Unabridged

Length: 2 hrs and 25 mins

Language: English

Release date: 07-26-13

Publisher: Michael Brein, Inc.

Genres: Travel & Adventure, Adventure & Exploration

Publisher's Summary:

Ever heard of a 'travel psychologist?' Michael Brein is the world's first and perhaps only travel psychologist and has created a unique travel audiobook series on the psychology of travel as revealed through the fantastic travel stories of more than 1,600 world travelers and adventurers whom he has interviewed over the last three decades. The first audiobook in the series, Travel Tales of Michael Brein: My Top 10, is a collection of Michael's best of the best of his own personal travel tales. Included are some harrowing tales of close calls and great escapes as well as some of his zaniest and funniest travel experiences. This audiobook is the 'Lite' edition of Michael's own, personal travel stories. The 'Full' edition - Travel Tales of Michael Brein: My Best 100 - containing more than 100 of Michael's best travel stories--will be available shortly.

If you are a traveler, you'll surely want to read the personal accounts of Michael Brein as he goes behind some of his most interesting travel experiences, revealing a rare psychological look at what can and does happen to you when you travel in exotic, strange cultures.

Is Michael for real? After reading these tales you might wonder whether Michael's travel experiences are real and revealing or a simply a figment of his own rich imagination, and, finally, whether he should maybe be locked up in a padded cell and not allowed to travel anywhere.

Read and decide for yourself!

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Title: Lucking Out

Subtitle: My Life Getting Down and Semi-Dirty in the Seventies

Author: James Wolcott

Narrator: Jeff Woodman

Format: Unabridged

Length: 10 hrs and 24 mins

Language: English

Release date: 07-16-13

Publisher: Audible Studios

Ratings: 4 of 5 out of 10 votes

Genres: Bios & Memoirs, Artists, Writers, & Musicians

Publisher's Summary:

"How lucky I was, arriving in New York just as everything was about to go to hell."

That would be in the autumn of 1972, when a very young and green James Wolcott arrived from Maryland, full of literary dreams, equipped with a letter of introduction from Norman Mailer, and having no idea what was about to hit him. Landing at a time of accelerating municipal squalor and, paradoxically, gathering cultural energy in all spheres as "Downtown" became a category of art and life unto itself, he embarked upon his sentimental education, seventies New York style.

This portrait of a critic as a young man is also a rollicking, acutely observant portrayal of a legendary time and place. Wolcott was taken up by fabled film critic Pauline Kael as one of her "Paulettes" and witnessed the immensely vital film culture of the period. He became an early observer-participant in the nascent punk scene at CBGB, mixing with Patti Smith, Lester Bangs, and Tom Verlaine. As a Village Voice writer he got an eyeful of the literary scene when such giants as Mailer, Gore Vidal, and George Plimpton strode the earth, and writing really mattered. A beguiling mixture of Kafka Was the Rage and Please Kill Me, this memoir is a sharp-eyed rendering, at once intimate and shrewdly distanced, of a fabled milieu captured just before it slips into myth. Mixing grit and glitter in just the right proportions, suffused with affection for the talented and sometimes half-crazed denizens of the scene, it will make listeners long for a time when you really could get mugged around here.

Members Reviews:

The Seething Fantasia of 70s New York

Name a cultural movement still resonating today, and I bet youll see its roots in New York in the Seventies.

From the New York City Ballet to CBGBs, James Wolcott was sitting in the back of the room quietly observing the artistic revolution.

With his singularly evocative style, Wolcott takes you from his beginnings in obscurity, to blustering his way into a writing career, eventually ending up the cultural critic for Vanity Fair.

He may have been lucky by being at the right places and times, but his writing chops prove luck wasnt all.

Next door to the Latham hunkers another low-profile holdover, the Prince George, which, before the gold medallions and furry testicles of disco descended, was a popular layover for flight crews whose trim blue uniforms and clippy stride made everybody else on the sidewalk look like clumps.

"Gold medallions and furry testicles of disco?"Luck had nothing to do with it.

Jeff Woodman, Audiofile Magazine's 2001 narrator of the year.

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Title: 50 Licks

Subtitle: Myths and Stories from Half a Century of the Rolling Stones

Author: Peter M. Fornatale

Narrator: Bernard Corbett, Dan Woren, Napoleon Ryan, Bob Deyan, Frazer Douglas, P.J. Ochlan, JD Jackson, Heather Wilds, Paula J Parker-Martin

Format: Unabridged

Length: 9 hrs and 48 mins

Language: English

Release date: 06-03-13

Publisher: Audible Studios for Bloomsbury

Ratings: 4.5 of 5 out of 5 votes

Genres: Bios & Memoirs, Artists, Writers, & Musicians

Publisher's Summary:

Behold the Rolling Stones: run-ins with the law, chart-topping successes, and now the World's Greatest Continually Operating Rock and Roll Band. 50 Licks tells the story of the Stones, right from its very origins. On July 12, 1962, London's Marquee Club debuted a new act, a blues-inflected rock band named after a Muddy Waters song-the Rolling Stones. They were a hard-edged band with a flair for the dramatic, styling themselves as the devil's answer to the sainted Beatles.

A young, inexperienced producer named Andrew Loog Oldham first heard the band at a session he remembers with four words: "I fell in love." Though unfamiliar with such basic industry practices as mixing a recording, he made a brilliant decision-he pitched the band to a studio that had passed on the Beatles. Afraid to make the same mistake twice, they signed the Stones, and began a history-making career. This is just one of the fifty classic stories that make up 50 Licks, each named for a different Stones song. Many are never before told, some are from exclusive interviews-including with elusive bassist Bill Wyman-and all are told by the people who lived them. Part oral history, part memorabilia, this fiftieth anniversary audiobook is the Stones album every collector will need to have.

Members Reviews:

Excellent

This is very well done. Lots of short stories and names the sources with plenty of quotes, and both sides of the story. Very good.

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Title: The Hike

Author: Don Shaw

Narrator: Terry Molloy

Format: Unabridged

Length: 9 hrs and 26 mins

Language: English

Release date: 05-30-13

Publisher: Random House Audiobooks

Ratings: 3 of 5 out of 2 votes

Genres: Travel & Adventure, Adventure & Exploration

Publisher's Summary:

Freddy, Phil and Don are three grumpy old men, travelling at various speeds in the slow lane of retirement, at a loss to understand the mad modern world around them. Their chosen method of escape from all this is a shared weekly hike in the Peak District, come gale, hail, snow or torrential rain. They pass the time bumping into colourful and eccentric locals, but their real passion is bickering among themselves. Not only about the right path to take, but also about where they're all going at the fag end of life.

Phil likes to dash up hills trying to beat his personal best, while Freddy plots how to sabotage him - teasing him at leisure and asking deep and difficult questions. Stuck in the middle, Don's only ambition is to stop the squabbling getting out of hand long enough to find a nice pub for lunch.

As warm as the wind is cold, as dry as the lashing rain is wet, The Hike is a hilarious tale of bum-warmers, crayfish-fanciers, East German Trabant enthusiasts, bodger philosophers, sticky ginger cake, gorgeous countryside and the subtle art of 'onedownmanship'.

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Title: Chekhov

Author: V. S. Pritchett

Narrator: Antony Ferguson

Format: Unabridged

Length: 6 hrs and 11 mins

Language: English

Release date: 05-02-13

Publisher: Audible Studios

Ratings: 4 of 5 out of 4 votes

Genres: Bios & Memoirs, Artists, Writers, & Musicians

Publisher's Summary:

V.S. Pritchett explores the connections between Chekhovs life and art, showing how Chekhov (1860-1904) often based his fiction on experiences of his difficult early years where he was responsible for his impoverished family, and as a young doctor, reported on the conditions of the Russian penal colony at Sakhalin. Later he continued his medical career, even when he became a well-known writer and playwright. This audiobook focuses on the short stories of Chekhov often neglected in favour of his plays and discusses why Chekhov was a success in both mediums. The author has previously written Collected Stories, a Selection of Short Stories

Victor Sawdon Pritchett (1900-1997) was born over a toyshop in 1900 and, much to his everlasting distaste, was named after Queen Victoria. A writer and critic, his is widely reputed to be one of the best short story writers of all time, with the rare ability to capture the extraordinary strangeness of everyday life. He died in 1997.

Members Reviews:

very distracting typos

Much more about his work than his life, this is a good book for Chekhov fans who want to be introduced to a basic chronology, and the personal and social contexts for his short stories. However, there are so many typos/mis-prints from the scanning (or whatever the technology is) that at points the book is difficult to read. That's a problem.

Biography of Chekhov

Good summary of Chekhov's life. However, it lacks an index, so it's hard to find a particular topic without having to search through the entire book. Also, the chapters do not have titles.

especially given that it is by such a good writer. I highly recommend the Rayfield biography

On the disappointing side, especially given that it is by such a good writer. I highly recommend the Rayfield biography instead

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Title: White Notebook

Author: Andre Gide

Narrator: Henri Lubatti

Format: Unabridged

Length: 2 hrs and 33 mins

Language: English

Release date: 03-07-13

Publisher: Audible Studios

Genres: Bios & Memoirs, Artists, Writers, & Musicians

Publisher's Summary:

This first published work lays bare the early brilliance and philosophical conflicts of André Gide, a towering figure in French literature.

Nobel Prize-winning writer André Gide lays bare his adolescent psyche in this early work, first conceived and published as part of his novel The Notebooks of André Walter, completed when he was just 20 years old. This profoundly personal work draws heavily on his religious upbringing and private journals to tell the story of a young man who, like the author, pines for his forbidden love, Cousin Emmanuelle.

This unique portrait of Gide as a young man presents the passions and conflicts, temptations and anguish he would explore in maturity.

Members Reviews:

A very good translation of Gide

For those who enjoy contemplative poesy, this is a classic. The printing of this version of Gide's Notebook is very good. This short book exudes contemplation and reflection. For anyone who is drawn to read Thomas Merton, I highly recommend that you delve into Andre Gide, to be read and reread in a contemplative state of mind.

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Title: Now the Drum of War

Subtitle: Walt Whitman and His Brothers in the Civil War

Author: Robert Roper

Narrator: David Deboy

Format: Unabridged

Length: 13 hrs and 55 mins

Language: English

Release date: 03-01-13

Publisher: Audible Studios for Bloomsbury

Ratings: 4 of 5 out of 3 votes

Genres: Bios & Memoirs, Artists, Writers, & Musicians

Publisher's Summary:

The Civil War is seen anew, and a great American family is brought to life, in Robert Ropers brilliant evocation of the family Whitman.

Walt Whitmans work as a nurse to the wounded soldiers of the Civil War had a profound effect on the way he saw the world. Much less well known is the extraordinary record of his younger brother George Washington Whitman, who led his men in 21 major battles almost to die in a Confederate prison camp as the fighting ended. Drawing on the searing letters that Walt, George, their mother Louisa, and their other brothers wrote to each other during the conflict, Now the Drum of War chronicles the experience of an archetypal American family enduring its own long crisis alongside the anguish of the nation. Robert Roper has constructed a powerful narrative about Americas greatest crucible, and a compelling, braided story of our most original poet and one of our bravest soldiers.

Members Reviews:

A Fresh Look at Whitman

This is the best book written on the Civil War in a generation. The

author has plumbed the sources (from the National Archives and

elsewhere) and come back with a story like none other, a scrupulous

history that reads with the vivid intensity of a major novel. The

descriptions of actual battles, in which George Whitman, the poet

Whitman's brother, fought, are alone worth the price of admission.

Roper is interested in many things, and one of them is the bond of

devotion that connected Walt to his six brothers. They were the sons

of a large, impoverished, severely afflicted Brooklyn family, several

of whose members were uncommonly brilliant. Roper brings the Great

Mother who presided over this clan into deep focus. Mrs. Whitman has

heretofore been known as an illiterate slum matron, churlish and

embarrassing; here, that distorted and condescending portrait

undergoes a wonderful correction.

The book is profoundly moving yet written with stoic reserve. Think

of early Hemingway; think of Stephen Crane. Whitman spent the war

years working as a nurse in the hospitals on the Union side; brother

George, meanwhile, was a line officer fighting for survival in some

of the most searing battles in our history. George's war

experiences, put into letters from the front, fed Walt's poetry, and

among other things this book is a clear-eyed reassessment of Walt's

poetic achievement. The only problem with NOW THE DRUM OF WAR is

that it eventually ends. Readers caught up in its intensely real

recreation of the Civil War and the writing of the great literature

of that war will find themselves doling out its final pages sparingly

-- to turn the last one was, in my experience, to feel bereft.

Taps

"When Lilacs Last in the Door-Yard Bloom'd" is a great American poem. This book gives the reader an understanding of how this eulogy to Abraham Lincoln came to be.

The family of Walt Whitman was large, with talented members intermixed with sad cases.

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Title: Curse of the Pharaohs

Subtitle: My Adventures with Mummies

Author: Zahi Hawass

Narrator: Firdous Bamji

Format: Unabridged

Length: 2 hrs and 22 mins

Language: English

Release date: 02-27-13

Publisher: Recorded Books

Ratings: 4.5 of 5 out of 5 votes

Genres: Bios & Memoirs, Artists, Writers, & Musicians

Publisher's Summary:

Under Egypts wind-swept sands, mummies and breathtaking treasure await those savvy and daring enough to seek them out. Intrepid archaeologist Zahi Hawass is one such adventurer, having made major discoveries in the pyramids at Giza and the Valley of the Golden Mummies.

In Curse of the Pharaohs, Hawass details the secrets of ancient Egyptand shows what it is like to be an archaeologist. From ancient germs and vipers to age-old curses and crumbling tombs, the dangers of his profession are real. But so too are the rewards. Uncovering artifacts that have gone thousands of years without seeing the light of day is the ultimate thrilland something that Hawass not only lives for, but lives to share with a worldwide audience.

Zahi Hawass has gained international fame for his many books and television appearances, and Curse of the Pharaohs continues his lifelong pursuit of revealing the mystery and intrigue of ancient Egypt.

Members Reviews:

Felt those Vibrations

I choose this rating because I received the product in a timely manner and in excellent condition.

Honestly I have always been intrigued by Archeology, History, etc... I have been watching all the documentaries by Dr. Zahii Hawass for years. When I received this book and opened it to the first page I had tingly feelings all through me and I read it all at once. Dr. Zahii Hawass is too cool! Just to think thousands of years ago and we are able to see and understand through others dedication and difficult work. I just wish people would leave ancient artifacts and buildings alone and leave them to the professionals. I wish I was able to read Cartophogrophy, Hieroglyphics.

How do we know where we are going if we do not know where we have been?

Awesome!

Great Book!!

Hawass has a sense of humor indeed!! I feel like he's speaking directly to me, as he illustrates the events that have plagued people for decades, based on rumors of curses placed by Egyptian Pharaohs.

A great book to introduce someone to Egyptology

I originally borrowed this book from the local library to read to my 9 year old daughter but it proved to be so interesting I bought a copy to reread to her from time to time. This is a great introduction to modern Egyptology by Egypt's renowned archaeologist. I would recommend getting this book for anyone you know who is seriously interested in studying ancient Egypt.

Love this book.

I've been a fan of Dr. Zahi Hawass's for years which has only fueled my love of Egyptian history. This is a great book. Excellent condition! Couldn't believe how fast this company shipped it.

Great book but not for college paper references

It has very good pictures and stories in it, I could only use is a few references out of it for my college paper, it would be more useful for a highschool student and below

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Title: We Wanted to be Writers

Subtitle: Life, Love, and Literature at the Iowa Writers' Workshop

Author: Eric Olsen, Glenn Schaffer

Narrator: Rama Vallury

Format: Unabridged

Length: 13 hrs and 5 mins

Language: English

Release date: 02-13-13

Publisher: Audible Studios

Ratings: 4 of 5 out of 6 votes

Genres: Bios & Memoirs, Artists, Writers, & Musicians

Publisher's Summary:

It was the best teaching-writing job I ever had. (John Irving)

We Wanted to be Writers is a rollicking and insightful blend of original interviews, commentary, advice, gossip, anecdotes, analyses, history, and asides with nearly thirty graduates and teachers at the now legendary Iowa Writers' Workshop between 1974 and 1978. Among the talents that emerged in those years - writing, criticizing, drinking, and debating in the classrooms and barrooms of Iowa City - were the younger versions of writers who became John Irving, Jane Smiley, T. C. Boyle, Michelle Huneven, Allan Gurganus, Sandra Cisneros, Jayne Anne Phillips, Jennie Fields, Joy Harjo, Joe Haldeman, and many others. It is chock full of insights and a treasure trove of inspiration for all writers, readers, history lovers, and anyone who ever "wanted to be a writer."

Jane Smiley on the Iowa writers' workshop: "In that period, the teachers tended to be men of a certain age, with the idea that competition was somehow the key-the Norman Mailer period. The story was that if you disagreed with Norman, or gave him a bad review, he'd punch you in the nose. You were supposed to get in fights in restaurants."

T.C. Boyle on his short story "Drowning": "I got $25 for it, which was wonderful... You know, getting $25 for the product of your own brain? You could buy a lot of beer in Iowa City back then for that."

Editorial Reviews:

The right time, the right place, the right mix of people - all the conditions for creative success were met between 1974 and 1978 at the Iowa Writers' Workshop, a group that nurtured the talents of John Irving, Jane Smiley, T.C. Boyle, and other literary greats. We Wanted to be Writers reminisces over this time of creative ferment through interviews and commentary with over 30 graduates and teachers from the legendary institution. Voice performer Rama Vallury takes listeners into the convivial inner circle of writers, skillfully capturing their yearning for success alongside the gossip and advice they so easily dispense. Entertaining and thoughtful, We Wanted to be Writers is sure to inspire anyone whose keenest desire is to write.

Members Reviews:

Authentic

Fun to read a little confusing from time to time with a male narrator in a male voice speaking as a female then make but a perfect read for aspiring writers