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Title: I Built a Raft

Author: James Nugent

Narrator: Andrew J. Cornelius

Format: Unabridged

Length: 23 mins

Language: English

Release date: 04-30-15

Publisher: Eld Inlet Services

Genres: Travel & Adventure, Essays & Travelogues

Publisher's Summary:

I built a raft out of plastic pop bottles and plywood, and then sailed away for a Saturday. I had sailed many kinds of vessels in the waters of southern Puget Sound, but never a homemade raft. The raft cost me $60. The adventure was priceless. Join me as I try this grand experiment.

Disclaimer:

Rafting is inherently dangerous. A homemade raft is even more risky. Human beings simply don't breathe underwater. I do not recommend trying to copy my exploits. I do recommend that you do sit back in the safety of your living room and enjoy my ludicrous adventure.

Bits and pieces:

I cobbled my raft together mostly from bits and pieces from around my yard and my 22-foot Columbia sailboat in the marina in Olympia, Washington.

For floatation I used 400 two-liter plastic bottles. There were also some one-liter plastic bottles sprinkled into the mix. In order to contain all the bottles I made flotation bags out of plastic lawn fencing.

The pop bottles were placed in the handmade bags. Plastic ties secured the flotation bags closed. I ended up with eight bags that would be the flotation for my adventure vessel!

The hull of my raft was made of scrap 2x4s and some quarter-inch plywood.

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Title: Travel Tales Monthly: No. 9 MAR 2015

Author: Michael Brein

Narrator: Gary Roelofs

Format: Unabridged

Length: 2 hrs and 55 mins

Language: English

Release date: 04-28-15

Publisher: Michael Brein, Inc.

Genres: Travel & Adventure, Essays & Travelogues

Publisher's Summary:

The March 2015 issue contains some of the best travel stories from Michael's huge collection of about 10,000 travel tales. Why not laugh yourself silly with this collection of funny, hilarious, gut-wrenching travel humor. Oh yeah, we do our fair share of ridiculous, raucous, belly-achingly funny things when we travel. And, I ask you: Is this not one of the most important goals of travel - to laugh ourselves stupid?

Whether falling through someone's roof on a horse in Afghanistan, getting soaked by taunting the "fountain gods" on a lawn at a castle, being thrown out of a restaurant in Buenos Aires for dancing on the tops of tables, or chilling your wine in a bidet, the funniest travel moments that make you laugh are a welcome change from those rare horrible travel events that make you cry. It is also these memorable stories that remain with us after all is said and done.

For many people, life is all about getting laid, lauded, or loaded. But for many of us it is more about sampling the lives, cultures, oddities, sights, sounds, foods, drinks, and humor of the peoples of other lands.

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Title: Never Too Late

Author: Amber Portwood

Narrator: Amber Portwood

Format: Unabridged

Length: 3 hrs and 31 mins

Language: English

Release date: 04-15-15

Publisher: Post Hill Press

Ratings: 4 of 5 out of 125 votes

Genres: Arts & Entertainment, Celebrity Bios

Publisher's Summary:

When Amber Portwood debuted on MTV's hit reality series 16 & Pregnant, no one could have predicted that the teenager from Anderson, Indiana, with the dry sense of humor would go on to become one of the most controversial young celebrities in reality TV history. But soon after Amber stepped into the public eye, her life spiraled into chaos.

From her struggles with anxiety, depression, and addiction to her brutal onscreen fights with her boyfriend, Amber seemed a troubled young woman destined to destroy herself. And that was all before she shocked everyone by sending herself to prison for 17 months!

But behind Amber Portwood's shocking behavior is a story the cameras never captured. It's a story of hardship and hope, of relationships torn apart by tragedy and addiction and put back together with strength, love, and determination. After years of losing herself in a daze of sex, drugs, and depression, Amber made the decision to stand up and do whatever it took to save her life, her family, and herself.

With her trademark honesty and dry sense of humor, Amber tells the real story of how she learned to deal with the demons that nearly destroyed her. Never Too Late sends a powerful message that no matter how far down a person might fall, it's never too late to get back up and change the future.

Members Reviews:

the message is great ! her narrating was terrible

I wouldn't suggest anybody pay for it its not really anything you didn't see on TV

Blah

Terrible quality on the video. Nice to hear her side but she spoke too quick and about nothing that we didn't know.

Really Good Book

This was a really good read. Although I think she could have went into more detail and had plenty more chapters it was a really decent book. I think she has had real struggles and went through a lot in her life. More power to her for writing about it.

I understand now

I think everyone judges by what they see on TV no one knows her real story. She explained it well on her book. I myself am bipolar and understand how hard it could be. like she said it's never too late to change and she has. I am proud of her. She did good explaining her story.

Strong story!

I love Amber! I love her for being strong and sharing her story! It's exciting to hear about how she developed. The narrating is not very good though.. I had a hard time following her because of her monotone way of reading, and cutting sentences in weird places. But overall pretty good.

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Title: Travel Tales Monthly: No. 8 FEB 2015

Author: Michael Brein

Narrator: Gary Roelofs

Format: Unabridged

Length: 3 hrs and 2 mins

Language: English

Release date: 03-25-15

Publisher: Michael Brein, Inc.

Genres: Travel & Adventure, Essays & Travelogues

Publisher's Summary:

The February 2015 issue samples the sorts of cons and scams experienced by travelers - their quest to travel safely, securely, and relatively comfortably, without falling victim to the innumerable schemes, scams, shams, and rip-offs perpetrated upon them at just about every turn in their travels (as well as, all too often, even in their own home countries).

Unfortunately travel today for anyone, and particularly for relatively naive, younger, and inexperienced travelers, has increasing challenges, what with the growing numbers of people relegated to begging, scheming, thieving, and having to do whatever they need to do to survive and get by.

All too often it has just about become almost the norm for people of all persuasions and varieties to try to somehow dispossess unknowing and unsuspecting foreign travelers of their money, passports, personal possessions and effects, and travel accouterments, simply because it's the easiest way for them to get by. It's often easier to steal than to work. And work overseas is not always easy to come by for those who want or need it.

And not only are there the usual local legions of pickpockets, thieves, and muggers on the prowl to contend with who are looking for victims; there are plenty of other fellow travelers guilty of doing such things as well.

Often travelers find themselves in difficult and sometimes dire situations, such as running out of money, getting into trouble, contending with being far away from home, maybe even strung out on drugs, or just having difficulty surviving. Some of these travelers, as a result, find themselves succumbing to and joining the ranks of con artists and scammers who prey upon other travelers and sometimes even the locals.

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Title: Gods and Kings

Subtitle: The Rise and Fall of Alexander McQueen and John Galliano

Author: Dana Thomas

Narrator: Elizabeth Sastre

Format: Unabridged

Length: 15 hrs and 47 mins

Language: English

Release date: 02-17-15

Publisher: Recorded Books

Ratings: 4.5 of 5 out of 97 votes

Genres: Arts & Entertainment, Celebrity Bios

Publisher's Summary:

In February 2011 John Galliano, the lauded head of Christian Dior, imploded with a drunken, anti-Semitic public tirade. Exactly a year earlier, celebrated designer Alexander McQueen took his own life three weeks before his women's wear show. Both were casualties of the war between art and commerce that has raged within fashion for the last two decades.

In the mid-1990s, Galliano and McQueen arrived on the fashion scene when the business was in an artistic and economic rut. They shook the establishment out of its bourgeois, minimalist stupor with daring, sexy designs and theatrical fashion shows. They had similar backgrounds: sensitive, shy gay men raised in tough London neighborhoods, their love of fashion nurtured by their doting mothers. By 1997 both had landed jobs as creative directors for couture houses owned by French tycoon Bernard Arnault, chairman of LVMH.

Galliano's and McQueen's work not only influenced fashion; their distinct styles were reflected across the media landscape. With their help luxury fashion evolved from a clutch of small, family-owned businesses into a $280 billion-a-year global corporate industry. Executives pushed the designers to meet increasingly rapid deadlines. For both Galliano and McQueen, the pace was unsustainable.

The same week that Galliano was fired, Forbes named Arnault the fourth richest man in the world. Two months later, in the wake of McQueen's death, Kate Middleton wore a McQueen wedding gown, instantly making the house the world's most famous fashion brand, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art opened a wildly successful McQueen retrospective, cosponsored by the corporate owners of the McQueen brand. The corporations had won, and the artists had lost.

In her groundbreaking work Gods and Kings, acclaimed journalist Dana Thomas tells the true story of McQueen and Galliano. In so doing she reveals the relentless world of couture.

Members Reviews:

Loved it from beginning to end!

Dana did a Great job giving great detail and passion. So clever to choose these two men for this Book.

Captivating

This book provided so much insight into the stressful and shallow yet fantastical realm of contemporary fashion. I was compelled to binge-listen. Any fans of fashion or art history would enjoy this without question.

i really enjoyed this book.

very interesting to listen to the contrasting upbringings of each designer and their evolving collections. great read, even greater listen. although, by the end of it, you will want to describe every detail of your day in a british accent.

Amazingly insightful! loved this great book!

This book goes into great detail on two talented designers. The author gives insight into their lives and how they fell from grace

This Book is EVERYTHING

I work in fashion and these two are geniuses. I thoroughly enjoyed this from beginning to end. I cannot stop thinking about it. I even enjoyed the narration. Loved it.

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Title: Wander

Author: Robert Isenberg

Narrator: Robert Isenberg

Format: Unabridged

Length: 47 mins

Language: English

Release date: 01-16-15

Publisher: Robert Isenberg

Genres: Travel & Adventure, Essays & Travelogues

Publisher's Summary:

Journeying by foot, train, boat, and bicycle, Robert Isenberg chronicles the sights and sounds of four continents, from windswept outback to teeming megacities. Here we meet drifters, cavaliers, streetwalkers, and saints, observed with the eye of a journalist and the soul of a playwright.

Written over the course of a decade, Wander celebrates the global family in all its horror and beauty.

Members Reviews:

Accessible Poetry

This is a very accessible collection of poems for those who may not ready poetry regularly. Besides reflecting upon the many places the author has visited, it is easy on the eye and ear to read.

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Title: Travel Tales Monthly: No. 5 NOV 2014

Author: Michael Brein

Narrator: Gary Roelofs

Format: Unabridged

Length: 2 hrs and 26 mins

Language: English

Release date: 12-10-14

Publisher: Michael Brein, Inc.

Genres: Travel & Adventure, Essays & Travelogues

Publisher's Summary:

Michael Brein's Travel Tales Monthly Bookazine Issue No. 5 for November 2014 contains among the best travel stories from Michael's huge collection of about 10,000 travel tales that he has gathered in interviews with nearly 1,750 world travelers and adventurers during his four decades of travel to more than 125 countries throughout the world. The 10 travel tales that are featured for November, as well as each following month, include a fascinating mix of travel stories as well as a few brief vignettes. These are, simply said, great travel stories!

The November issue features such tales as "The Black Book", "Confessions of a Customs Officer", and "Confessions of a Stewardess", whereby travelers get themselves into trouble by behaving and acting in ways that make them guilty of doing dubious things while traveling overseas. It is difficult enough to stick to the straight and narrow back home. But what are the consequences of acting and behaving illegally or immorally in a foreign land? And in one of our featured stories for this month, the Black Book, our traveler toys dangerously with several U.S. Federal authorities and becomes her own worst enemy! And even worse, and unbelievably, a Pan Am stewardess gets in over her head by daring to become the mistress of the president of an Asian country! How sensible or dangerous is that? Acting in ways contrary to good common sense, we have in this months issue a number of travelers who dare to taunt fate in the face of possible dangerous and disastrous consequences. And, finally, you will also see some aspects of travel that you, yourself, may not ever have even considered before. And, once again, you will certainly experience vicariously those odd vagaries of travel-life that can await you and can suddenly appear just around the corner at just about any turn along the way.

Winding up this month's issue is George Wingfield, our guest contributor for this month, who describes the hilarious antics of some very odd touring clients he has worked with in the U.K.

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Title: The Solomon Islands

Subtitle: Travel Adventures

Author: Thomas Booth

Narrator: Alexander J. Kenis

Format: Unabridged

Length: 1 hr and 2 mins

Language: English

Release date: 12-08-14

Publisher: Hunter Publishing, Inc.

Genres: Travel & Adventure, Essays & Travelogues

Publisher's Summary:

Nature is excessive, lovely, and ominous in the Solomons and the Melanesians who live there, often blond or redheaded, are the blackest of all people. Before World War II such names as Guadalcanal, Savo, Munda were rarely heard. Guadalcanal, over 100 miles long by 30 miles wide, is the largest island. Then in descending order there's Malaita, San Cristobal, Choiseul, New Georgia, and Santa Ysabel. All of them are mountainous, covered with rain forest, and laced with rivers. The remaining hundreds of islands range from substantial, to mere dots of coral. Today even the most remote islands have usable airstrips that date back to WW II.

This is the real Melanesia, and for "do it yourself travel" there are plenty of inter island boats, adequate housing, gentle people, and beauty. And, thanks to World War II, you can get nearly everywhere by air. Two hundred fifty thousand Solomon Islanders live on the six main islands and associated clusters that slant across the Coral Sea for 900 miles. Ninety-four percent of them are black Melanesians, but a small fraction are Micronesian, Chinese, a few are European, and curiously some are Polynesian.

This guide to the Solomons, written by an author who has seen them all and has been there dozens of times, is loaded with inside information and details on the places to stay and eat, plus what to see and do.

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Title: The Filthy Truth

Author: Andrew Dice Clay

Narrator: Bruce Rubenstein

Format: Unabridged

Length: 8 hrs and 31 mins

Language: English

Release date: 11-11-14

Publisher: Brilliance Audio

Ratings: 4.5 of 5 out of 88 votes

Genres: Arts & Entertainment, Celebrity Bios

Publisher's Summary:

An outrageously raw, painfully funny memoir recounting the iconic comedians meteoric rise, spectacular fall, and triumphant return.

In this unapologetic and uncensored autobiography, Andrew Dice Clay is ready to set the record straight. He was the eighties answer to Lenny Bruce, with material that stretched the boundaries of decency and good taste to their breaking point, and in turn became the most vilified stand-up comic of all time.

From humble beginnings Andrew Dice Clay roared to fame, becoming the only comedian to sell out Madison Square Garden two nights in a row, but his edgy material quickly caught up to him. His billboards were defaced; the premiere of his film The Adventures of Ford Fairlane was cancelled; some of the cast members of Saturday Night Live threatened to walk off when he guest-hosted the program; and he was famously banned for life from MTV. For almost twenty years he stayed out of the spotlight, but like a real life Rocky, Dice would not stay down. Spurred by a role written for him by the creator of Entourage and a critically acclaimed starring role in Woody Allens film Blue Jasmine, Dice is back in the spotlight and selling out theaters.

Filled with no-holds-barred humor as well as plenty of never-before-shared stories from his comedic career as well as his friendships with Howard Stern, Sam Kinison, Mickey Rourke, Sylvester Stallone, Slash, and many others, The Filthy Truth delivers a knockout punch.

Members Reviews:

The Diceman Returns!

I still remember my bandmated and I watching his first special, back in '88. Suffice it to say, our banter with the crowd took on a certain "Dice-like" quality. He was such a game changer.

I've always loved him. It's great to hear his story, from him. Rumours, started by the media, were all we heard, for years. That was a disservice to the Man. He deserved so much more respect.

THIS, is the way you want to hear about the Diceman!

Great job dice

The man with a plan - ups downs - sideways - you guys are going to be so crookedly funny they will have to screw you in the ground when you Die. - Rock on Andrew - yes we don't know each other but you have lived the lives of 10 men ....J Man Long Island New York

awesome

Loved it, laughed, maybe got a little water in my eyes and motivated in life to never give up.

Dice getting laid

What could have made this a 4 or 5-star listening experience for you?

Hearing about Dice's sexual history get boring pretty fast. The story of his career sounds interesting but, he tells it in a very juvenile way. I made it a few hours before I completely lost interest.

Would you ever listen to anything by Andrew Dice Clay again?

Probably not.

How could the performance have been better?

Some guy doing a poor Dice impersonation.

What reaction did this book spark in you? Anger, sadness, disappointment?

Disappointment.

DICE NEEDED TO TELL HIS OWN STORY

Would you try another book from Andrew Dice Clay and/or Bruce Rubenstein?

Cant listen to Bruce Rubenstein boring, Dice has a way to deliver stories the Rubenstein lacks

Who would you have cast as narrator instead of Bruce Rubenstein?

Dice needed to tell his story would have made the book a million times better. Dice's delivery, timing, and enthusiasm would have gave this book the justice it deserves.

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Title: Hope

Subtitle: Entertainer of the Century

Author: Richard Zoglin

Narrator: Malcolm Hillgartner

Format: Unabridged

Length: 17 hrs and 47 mins

Language: English

Release date: 11-04-14

Publisher: Brilliance Audio

Ratings: 4 of 5 out of 135 votes

Genres: Arts & Entertainment, Celebrity Bios

Publisher's Summary:

Born in 1903, and until his death in 2003, Bob Hope was the only entertainer to achieve top-rated success in every major mass-entertainment medium, from vaudeville to television and everything in between. He virtually invented modern stand-up comedy. His tours to entertain US troops and patriotic radio broadcasts, along with his all-American, brash-but-cowardly movie character, helped to ease the nation's jitters during the stressful days of World War II. He helped redefine the very notion of what it means to be a star: a savvy businessman, pioneer of the brand extension (churning out books, writing a newspaper column, hosting a golf tournament), and public-spirited entertainer whose Christmas military tours and tireless work for charity set the standard for public service in Hollywood. But he became a polarizing figure during the Vietnam War, and the audiobook sheds new light on his close relationship with President Richard Nixon during those embattled years.

Bob Hope is a household name. However, as Richard Zoglin shows in this revelatory biography, there is still much to be learned about this most public of figures, from his secret first marriage and his stint in reform school, to his indiscriminate womanizing and his ambivalent relationship with Bing Crosby and Johnny Carson. Hope could be cold, self-centered, tight with a buck, and perhaps the least introspective man in Hollywood. But he was also a dogged worker, gracious with fans, and generous with friends.

Hope is both a celebration of an entertainer whose vast contribution has never been properly appreciated, and a complex portrait of a gifted but flawed man, who, unlike many Hollywood stars, truly loved being famous, appreciated its responsibilities, and handled celebrity with extraordinary grace.

Members Reviews:

A thoroughly engaging biography

Would you listen to Hope again? Why?

Well, I might listen to it with another Hope enthusiast, because it's so well done. But a book is a book and I usually read a book once.

What did you like best about this story?

I appreciated the honesty of the reporting of Hope's astonishing life. Fabulous and Flawed, every aspect of Hope's contribution to show business is covered.

Have you listened to any of Malcolm Hillgartners other performances before? How does this one compare?

I have not, but I found his delivery superb, and his subtle delivery of Hope's quotes somewhat evocative of Hope himself.

Any additional comments?

This is an important book, about an important 20th Century personality. It is accessible and very well-written, and the performance on the Audible recording is brilliant.

Overall an excellent book

Highly recommend this book - it is real and down to earth. Very interesting and enjoyable - captures the readers attention throughout the narrative

Now I know Bob better!

I remember watching the Bob Hope TV show and specials, his movies, and his tours to entertain the US troops. He seemed to never rest--he was all about entertaining people. I didn't know tons of details about the man who made himself into Bob Hope, so I turned to this biography. It did not disappoint. It is well written and the narrator was excellent.