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Title: I Need a Lifeguard Everywhere but the Pool

Author: Lisa Scottoline, Francesca Serritella

Narrator: Lisa Scottoline, Francesca Serritella

Format: Unabridged

Length: 5 hrs and 14 mins

Language: English

Release date: 07-11-17

Publisher: Macmillan Audio

Ratings: 4.5 of 5 out of 36 votes

Genres: Bios & Memoirs, Personal Memoirs

Publisher's Summary:

The best-selling and "perennially hilarious" mother-daughter team is back with a new collection of stories from their real lives, guaranteed to make you laugh out loud. Join Lisa and Francesca as they regret drunk shopping online, try smell dating, and explore the freedom of a hiatus from men - a guyatus. They offer a fresh and funny take on the triumphs and facepalm moments of modern life, showing that when it comes to navigating the crazy world we live in, you're always your own best lifeguard.

This program is read by the authors.

Critic Reviews:

"Lisa and Francesca, mother and daughter, bring you the laughter of their lives." (Delia Ephron, best-selling author)

"Scottoline does the heavy lifting, and her exuberant delivery, marked by a Philly accent, is irresistible. She's a firebrand and, one essay at time, she challenges conventional wisdom on a lot of things." (

AudioFile)

Members Reviews:

Love, love, love

Can't get enough of listening to these two! I wish they would do these books more often.

Disappointed

I bought this book expecting the type and quality of so many other books by the author i have listened to.

Boring

Did not keep me entertained! I was expecting it to be funnier. Would not recommend,

So funny!!

Awesome to listen to especially when you have both authors reading to you! I had my headphones on and No one knew what I was laughing about. Loved it from beginning to end:-)

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Title: A Stone of Hope

Subtitle: A Memoir

Author: Jim St. Germain, Jon Sternfeld

Narrator: Ron Butler

Format: Unabridged

Length: 8 hrs and 56 mins

Language: English

Release date: 07-04-17

Publisher: Harper Audio

Ratings: 4.5 of 5 out of 12 votes

Genres: Bios & Memoirs, Personal Memoirs

Publisher's Summary:

In the tradition of The Other Wes Moore and Just Mercy, a searing memoir and clarion call to save our at-risk youth by a young black man who himself was a lost cause - until he landed in a rehabilitation program that saved his life and gave him purpose.

Born into abject poverty in Haiti, young Jim St. Germain moved to Brooklyn's Crown Heights, into an overcrowded apartment with his family. He quickly adapted to street life and began stealing, dealing drugs, and growing increasingly indifferent to despair and violence. By the time he was arrested for dealing crack cocaine, he had been handcuffed more than a dozen times. At the age of 15, the walls of the system were closing around him.

But instead of prison, St. Germain was placed in "Boys Town", a nonsecure detention facility designed for rehabilitation. Surrounded by mentors and positive male authority who enforced a system based on structure and privileges rather than intimidation and punishment, St. Germain slowly found his way, eventually getting his GED and graduating from college. Then he made the bravest decision of his life: to live, as an adult, in the projects where he had lost himself, and to work to reform the way the criminal justice system treats at-risk youth.

A Stone of Hope is more than an incredible coming-of-age story; told with a degree of candor that requires the deepest courage, it is also a rallying cry. No one is who they are going to be - or capable of being - at 16. St. Germain is living proof of this. He contends that we must work to build a world in which we do not give up on a swath of the next generation.

Passionate, eloquent, and timely, A Stone of Hope is an inspiring challenge for every American and is certain to spark debate nationwide.

Members Reviews:

Inspiring and Needed

This book gives in-depth personal insight into the struggles of growing up in the projects in Brooklyn NY and the many obstacles preventing youth from escaping the cycle of poverty and violence in urban USA. Ultimately inspiring story of a man who made It out but stays as It is responsibility to the next generation.

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Title: Hunger

Subtitle: A Memoir of (My) Body

Author: Roxane Gay

Narrator: Roxane Gay

Format: Unabridged

Length: 5 hrs and 57 mins

Language: English

Release date: 07-03-17

Publisher: Hachette Audio

Ratings: 4.5 of 5 out of 3 votes

Genres: Bios & Memoirs, Personal Memoirs

Publisher's Summary:

'I ate and ate and ate in the hopes that if I made myself big, my body would be safe. I buried the girl I was because she ran into all kinds of trouble. I tried to erase every memory of her, but she is still there, somewhere.... I was trapped in my body, one that I barely recognized or understood, but at least I was safe.'

New York Times best-selling author Roxane Gay has written with intimacy and sensitivity about food and bodies, using her own emotional and psychological struggles as a means of exploring our shared anxieties over pleasure, consumption, appearance, and health. As a woman who describes her own body as 'wildly undisciplined', Roxane understands the tension between desire and denial, between self-comfort and self-care.

In Hunger, she casts an insightful and critical eye on her childhood, teens, and 20s - including the devastating act of violence that acted as a turning point in her young life - and brings listeners into the present and the realities, pains, and joys of her daily life.

With the bracing candour, vulnerability and authority that have made her one of the most admired voices of her generation, Roxane explores what it means to be overweight in a time when the bigger you are, the less you are seen. Hunger is a deeply personal memoir from one of our finest writers and tells a story that hasn't yet been told but needs to be.

Members Reviews:

Fantastic!

This is my first audiobook and I was very hesitant. However, I think I chose the correct audio book! The story was very captivating and narration was very well done. It was also very relatable in many aspects and I loved how Roxane Gay spoke about the societal issues that have also shaped her experience.

Essential reading

This is an excellent, challenging read, which forces you to think about the assumptions you make about people. Brutally honest.

Extremely brave account of weight and trauma

Roxane Gay's deeply moving, hard-hitting biographical account of rape and its consequences is harrowing and triggering. The profound impact it had on her life goes to explain all her decision making as a result. Not to explain away her feelings of her weight, but it shows a small tenet of how trauma can have such devastating results. It can be a little repetitive from a literary perspective but it's well worth all the kudos.

A memoir of a great mind and a traumatised body

Beautifully written, heart breaking, brave and honest. I felt privileged to hear her story. It felt so private, so intimate and so full of pain and courage and love and strength and hope.

Woe is me.

I wanted to like this author so much but it was impossible. She hates herself but doesn't want pity.....she thrives on playing the victim and refuses to take any responsibility for her weight. Her attitude is 'the world does not fit my needs, respect or accommodate me therefor the world should change for me'.

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Title: My First Summer in the Sierra

Author: John Muir

Narrator: Barry Press

Format: Unabridged

Length: 6 hrs and 48 mins

Language: English

Release date: 06-27-17

Publisher: Dreamscape Media, LLC

Ratings: 5 of 5 out of 5 votes

Genres: Bios & Memoirs, Personal Memoirs

Publisher's Summary:

In the summer of 1869, John Muir, a young Scottish immigrant, joined a crew of shepherds in the foothills of California's Sierra Nevada Mountains. The diary he kept while tending sheep formed the heart of this book, which was first published in 1911 and which eventually lured thousands of Americans to visit Yosemite country. My First Summer in the Sierra incorporates the lyrical accounts and sketches Muir produced during his four-month stay in the Yosemite River Valley and the High Sierra. His daily records track his memorable experiences, describing the majestic vistas, flora and fauna, and other breathtaking natural wonders of the area. Today, Muir is recognized as one of the most important and influential naturalists and nature writers in America. This book, the most popular of the author's works, will delight environmentalists and nature lovers with its exuberant observations.

Members Reviews:

Unexpected find. A great read. Awesome photography.

Definitely a good buy.

It's almost like poetry.

Seeing the Sierra through John Muir's eyes - for the ...

Seeing the Sierra through John Muir's eyes - for the first time - as he was and as the Sierra was in 1869 is a priceless gift.

Always inspires!

Always an enjoyable and inspiring read, especially these days.

Five Stars

Beautiful written......

It is great to listen to him rhapsodize about the Sierraâs

If you are not used to hyperbolic language, this classic can put you off. He probably read Leaves of Grass growing up. It is great to listen to him rhapsodize about the Sierraâs; at the same time his flock eats every plant around him. This is a comment on the book, not Muirâs life or legacy. Great slice of life comments for the time period.

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Title: 21 Months a Captive

Subtitle: Rachel Plummer and the Fort Parker Massacre

Author: Rachel Plummer, James W. Parker

Narrator: Brian V. Hunt, Claire Dayton

Format: Unabridged

Length: 3 hrs and 13 mins

Language: English

Release date: 06-26-17

Publisher: Big Byte Books

Genres: Bios & Memoirs, Personal Memoirs

Publisher's Summary:

On May 19, 1836, Fort Parker in Texas was overwhelmed by a band of Comanche Indians. Some residents were brutally murdered, others taken prisoner.

Among those captured was 11-year-old Cynthia Parker, who would remain with the Comanche for 24 years and give birth to famed Chief Quanah.

Another captive was 17-year-old Rachel Plummer, mother of one, pregnant with her second child. She would soon have her first-born ripped from her arms, never to be seen again, and later watched as her second-born was killed before her eyes.

After 21 months of captivity that destroyed her health, she was purchased and returned to her family. In this extraordinary account, her father tells of that horrible day when the fort was attacked, and his desperate efforts to find and retrieve the captives. Rachel details her terrible enslavement and how she eventually fought back.

Members Reviews:

All in all however it is a good little book if you enjoy reading history

This short story has information on the capture of Rachel Plummer by a group of Plain's Indians and her father's journey in attempting to find and rescue his daughter. The title is somewhat misleading as most of the story concerned Rachel's father. All in all however it is a good little book if you enjoy reading history.

Five Stars

Historical.

Five Stars

It was a gift and very well liked.

Crucial to any student of American history.

What struck me is the similarity of experience by Rachel Plummer and Sarah Ann Horn, another excellent read about this fascinating and terrible time in history. Emotionally, this is a difficult thing to read, but worthwhile to any student of history.

Worthwhile read

Good accounting of the time, not as good as some, but better than many others. Staying true to diary content was appreciated.

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Title: A Country Between

Subtitle: Making a Home Where Both Sides of Jerusalem Collide

Author: Stephanie Saldana

Narrator: Justine Eyre

Format: Unabridged

Length: 8 hrs and 1 min

Language: English

Release date: 05-30-17

Publisher: Tantor Audio

Genres: Bios & Memoirs, Personal Memoirs

Publisher's Summary:

When American writer Stephanie Saldana finds herself in an empty house at the beginning of Nablus Road, the dividing line between East and West Jerusalem, she is a new wife trying to navigate a fragile terrain, both within her marriage and throughout the country in which she has chosen to live. Pregnant with her first child, Stephanie struggles to protect her family, their faith, and herself from the cracks of Middle Eastern conflict that threaten to shatter the world around her. But as her due date approaches, she must reconcile herself with her choice to bring a child into a dangerous world. Determined to piece together life from the brokenness, she sets out to uncover small instances of beauty to balance the delicate coexistence between love, motherhood, and a country so often at war. In an urban valley in Jerusalem, A Country Between captures the fragile ecosystem of the Middle East and the difficult first years of motherhood in the midst of a conflict-torn city. What unfolds is a celebration of faith, language, family, and love that fills the space between what was shattered, leaving us whole once more.

Members Reviews:

I've waited SEVEN WHOLE YEARS for this magical book....

I've waited very impatiently for SEVEN years for Saldana's next book and it absolutely did not disappoint. QUITE the opposite, By chance I picked up her first memoir, The Bread of Angels, before a trip to France in 2010 and I'll always remember reading that book as much as the trip itself for the most beautiful writing of any memoir I'd ever read. And the love story itself is just an exquisite poem. This book continues Saldana's journey and it was as magnificent as her first book. I'll be giving copies of her books to friends and loved ones for years to come. Its truly one of the most beautiful pieces of writing and stories I've ever read in my all my 44 years. I can't recommend it enough.

Discovering cultural nuances

A wonderful read! The book gives a voice to the concerns of personal relationships and parenthood within the context of a very conflicted world, opens our eyes to the daily challenges of those who livie in a war zone, and makes us recognize that there is more to people than we see on the surface.

A beautiful story about love in the midst of turmoil.

Stephanie Saldana shows us how much better the world would be if we didn't let politics divide us.

Five Stars

Great book, perfect for this time in the world!

Brilliant and beautiful.

By far one of the most moving accounts of life...and love...from the chaos called the Middle East.

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Title: Exit Stage Left

Author: Tilly Dunn

Narrator: Dawn Harvey

Format: Unabridged

Length: 5 hrs and 55 mins

Language: English

Release date: 05-22-17

Publisher: LitFire Publishing

Genres: Bios & Memoirs, Personal Memoirs

Publisher's Summary:

What an incredible journey this book takes you through. I could almost feel the pain that would be brought about by these manic episodes, and I have a deep felt respect that she was able to pull out of it. Talk about determination and the power of the mind and will! I also have lots of respect for Rob in sticking by Tilly through it all. It's certainly not easy to be with someone who is diagnosed bipolar or borderline personality disorder, and in most cases, the relationship doesn't survive. BPD is further explained in other books such as Stop Walking on Eggshells that will help you understand what it's all about, and to appreciate even more what Tilly endured all of these years. Coming from myself, who holds a PhD in applied sciences, I am quite familiar with chemical imbalances, and I can surely understand and appreciate the pain she endured, and how those around her could feel helpless in these moments of trouble.

The book takes you through the years leading up to today, which I think is crucial to understanding that there was no real reason for the manic moments. Like Tilly, you must want the change badly enough to make the necessary steps towards it. I found this book to be an incredibly good book, and I would highly recommend it: either as a foundation to help in overcoming the condition, or to broaden your knowledge through someone else's eyes. Thank you, Tilly, for painstakingly telling us your story, and I know you'll stay true to your path.

Members Reviews:

What a good read!

What an incredible journey this book takes you through. I could almost feel the pain that would be brought about by these manic episodes and I have a deep felt respect that she was able to pull out of it. Talk about determination and the Power of the mind and will! I also have lots of respect for Rob in sticking by Tilly through it all. Itâs certainly not easy to be with someone who is diagnosed with Bipolar disorder or Borderline Personality Disorder, and in most cases, the relationship doesnât survive. BPD is further explained in other books, such as Stop Walking on Eggshells, that will help you understand what itâs all about and to appreciate even more what Tilly endured all of these years. Coming from myself who holds a PhD in Applied Sciences, I am quite familiar with chemical imbalances and I can surely understand and appreciate the pain she endured and how those around her could feel helpless in these moments of trouble.

The book takes you through the years leading up to today, which I think is crucial in understanding that there was no real reason for the manic moments. Like Tilly, you must want the change bad enough to make the necessary steps towards it. I found this book to be an incredibly good read and I would highly recommend it either as a foundation to help in overcoming this condition or to broaden your knowledge through someone elseâs eyes. Thank you Tilly for painstakingly telling us your story and I know youâll stay true to your path.

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Title: The Ragged Edge

Subtitle: A US Marines Account of Leading the Iraqi Army Fifth Battalion

Author: Michael Zacchea, Ted Kemp

Narrator: John Pruden

Format: Unabridged

Length: 13 hrs and 16 mins

Language: English

Release date: 05-09-17

Publisher: Tantor Audio

Ratings: 5 of 5 out of 6 votes

Genres: Bios & Memoirs, Personal Memoirs

Publisher's Summary:

At a time when the United States debates how deeply to involve itself in Iraq and Syria, Lieutenant Colonel Michael Zacchea, USMC (Ret.), holds a unique vantage point on our still-ongoing war.

Deployed to Iraq in March 2004, his team's mission was to build, train, and lead in combat the first Iraqi army battalion trained by the US military. Zacchea tells a deeply personal and powerful story while shedding light on the dangerous pitfalls of training foreign troops to fight murderous insurgents.

The Ragged Edge is the first American military memoir out of Iraq or Syria that features complex Arab and Kurdish characters and that intimately explores their culture and politics in a dispassionate way. Zacchea's invaluable lessons about Americans working with Arabs and Kurds to fight insurgency and terrorism come precisely when such wartime collaboration is happening more than at any time in US history.

Members Reviews:

A must read for all politicians and military advisors. A should read for most Americans.

I was opposed to the Iraq war and was even protesting in the streets of NYC prior to the war. But I was able to return my day job and easy civilian life. Michael Zacchea, on the other hand, chose to enlist in the Marines and wound up trying to rebuild a "free" Iraqi army.

This book is a fascinating read of what actually happened in the year after "mission accomplished" in Iraq through the eyes of a soldier with his "boots on the ground" over there.

This book should be required reading for every politician and military officer who wants to put our men and women to war. It would also serve the enlisted as well as every citizen of this country. It reveals our ignorance in a way that allows us to be more informed of our actions going forward.

Clearly at the onset of this war, the US leaders were not following the advice of Sun Tzu laid out in his military treatise "The Art of War."

A great and courageous narrative

A great and courageous narrative. This is not a genre or topic that I would normally read but I found it smooth reading visually and the flow connected me to a story that I felt compelled to finish. In a present inclined to create alternative facts, Zacchea reminds us of the devastating impact of forgetting the lessons of the past.

I will never see Iraq and America the same again

The Ragged Edge showed me a side of my own American history from an entirely new perspective. I never understood just how desperate the conditions were, just how barren Iraq was. On one level, I knew there was a privatization effort going on but how it manifested on the ground became a painful reality when I read this book. The culture of Iraqi men who chose to serve because they needed the money and left when the job no longer served them explains one of the many difficulties of bringing American Democracy to a place that understood neither America or Democracy. Essential reading for every American.

As a two time Operation Iraqi Freedom Veteran myself, ...

As a two time Operation Iraqi Freedom Veteran myself, I found this book very in-depth, intense and informative. The Colonel puts faces, names and personalities of Iraqi soldiers, civilians and translators forefront as no other OIF reading before.

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Title: Patient H69

Subtitle: The Story of My Second Sight

Author: Vanessa Potter

Narrator: Vanessa Potter

Format: Unabridged

Length: 9 hrs and 15 mins

Language: English

Release date: 05-04-17

Publisher: Audible Studios for Bloomsbury

Ratings: 4 of 5 out of 3 votes

Genres: Bios & Memoirs, Personal Memoirs

Publisher's Summary:

Imagine what it would be like to one day wake up and find that you were suddenly completely blind. This is what happened to Vanessa Potter. Her condition is unique. It has no name. Over the course of the next six months, Vanessa slowly recovered her vision. Opening her eyes onto a watery, two-dimensional landscape, she saw an unrecognisably monochromatic world. As colour reappeared, Vanessa encountered a range of bizarre phenomena, from synaesthesia to discussions with inanimate objects - all part of her brain's mechanism for coping with the trauma of sensory loss and the recovery of her optic nerves.

Vanessa soon became a one-woman experimental subject, as a multidisciplinary team of neurobiologists, psychologists and immunologists tried to work out what had happened to her, and why, and what incredible things they might be able to learn from her. The scientists were fortunate to know exactly what she was experiencing through her audio diaries; her unique medical recovery offered a window into the way that the human optic system develops. A foetus can't explain what's happening as its optic system grows, develops, and clicks into action. Vanessa could. This mesmerising account tells the story of Patient H69 in her own words, based on these detailed diaries she kept during her time of blindness and through the scientific research that was to follow. Having helped open windows into some areas of developmental neurobiology that were barely understood before, this gripping story is a testament to the resilience of the brain itself.

Members Reviews:

Better memoir than scientific account

Any additional comments?

3.5 stars. This is a book in two parts. The first part is memoir of a catastrophic medical event. The author, Vanessa Potter, rapidly loses her vision in the matter of 72 hours following what felt like a prolonged cold. Along with her vision, other cognitive function is hampered, including degradation of feeling in her hands and feet. This first part of the book, vividly written and meticulously detailed, is very good indeed. Potter, a producer, immediately endeavored to record her sensations (both via her family taking notes and her own recordings of her thoughts). As a result, there is an immediacy to the sensations and fear, the ignorance and groping for a diagnosis, the halting steps toward recovery.

The second part of the book is an exploration of the science behind what happened to her and how she managed a partial recovery. This part of the book, while solid, is not nearly as engrossing as the first part of the book. This is largely because she has presented much of the explanation in dialog between her and various specialists. This ends up feeling a bit stilted at time and may have been better presented without constant direct quotes (in many ways, it can feel like a transcript, made a bit unbelievable because of the constant affirmation of whoever she is talking to in a given dialog). Despite these shortcomings, it is still very interesting to learn what may have triggered her loss of vision (a condition related to her immune system) and how her brain attempted to regain some of that vision, as helped by not only neuroplasticity, but also a number of daily projects and activities that Potter engaged in that helped rebuild her sight.

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Title: He Calls Me by Lightning

Subtitle: The Life of Caliph Washington and the Forgotten Saga of Jim Crow, Southern Justice, and the Death Penalty

Author: S. Jonathan Bass

Narrator: Mirron Willis

Format: Unabridged

Length: 13 hrs and 40 mins

Language: English

Release date: 05-02-17

Publisher: Tantor Audio

Ratings: 4.5 of 5 out of 7 votes

Genres: Bios & Memoirs, Personal Memoirs

Publisher's Summary:

Caliph Washington's life was never supposed to matter. As a black teenager from the vice-ridden city of Bessemer, Alabama, Washington was wrongfully convicted of killing an Alabama policeman in 1957. Sentenced to death, he came within minutes of the electric chair - nearly a dozen times. A Kafka-esque legal odyssey in which Washington's original conviction was overturned three times before he was finally released in 1972, his story is the kind that pervades the history of American justice. Here, in the hands of historian S. Jonathan Bass, Washington's ordeal and life are rescued from anonymity and become a moving parable of one man's survival and perseverance in a hellish system. He Calls Me by Lightning is both a compelling legal drama and a fierce depiction of the Jim Crow South that forces us to take account of the lives cast away by systemic racism.

Members Reviews:

Important story but too negatively skewed

Enjoyed the book. I grew up in Bessemer during the 60's and 70's and knew personally many of the people and events described. I think the author told an important story. However, I feel that he was overzealous in his relentlessly negative representation of our community. There were, in fact, many caring people of integrity who worked hard to bring about positive change and to serve everyone in our community. I will always be proud to say that Bessemer is my hometown and that many fine people of varying races nurtured me and molded my character and faith.

A moving, horrifying story of a shameful miscarriage of justice; an important piece of US history

Another important book about one of the many, many victims of the incredibly vile effects of racism and power systems perpetuated by racists. The travails of Caliph Washington is enough to make one deeply ashamed to be human. The man was put on death row by a system of "justice" that was anything but. Some of the judicial decisions described by Bass are appallingly, such as Washington sitting in jail for over years after his second trial & conviction was overturned, with no action whatsoever by the state of Alabama to either retry him or release him. Despite reading the judicial opinion Bass related as to why this didn't constitute a violation of Washington's right to a timely trial, I still find it utterly incomprehensible. Or why, in the event of another conviction in his third trial, the 13 years he sat in prison would not count toward his sentence (including the years on death row & THIRTEEN stays of execution, several just hours before he was to be electrocuted).

Bass is a thorough historian, and goes to some lengths to describe the framework for the story --the realities of life in Bessemer, Alabama; racial, social, political, & criminal. I think this is particularly important for younger readers, or for those who have no real idea what life --and racial interactions-- were like in the Deep South at the dawn of civil rights (or up to the present, for that matter). I wasn't yet born when Washington was first convicted of murdering Clark but spent considerable time around & lived in the South starting in the 70s.