New nonfiction book on Audible

My newest recording just went on sale on Audible. Under the Skin: Tattoos, Scalps, and the Contested Language of Bodies in Early America was written by Mairin Odle. 

"Under the Skin investigates the role of cross-cultural body modification in seventeenth-century and eighteenth-century North America, revealing that the practices of tattooing and scalping were crucial to interactions between Natives and newcomers. These permanent and painful marks could act as signs of alliance or signs of conflict, producing a complex bodily archive of cross-cultural entanglement.

Indigenous body modification practices were adopted and transformed by colonial powers, making tattooing and scalping key forms of cultural and political contestation in early America. Although these bodily practices were quite distinct one a painful but generally voluntary sign of accomplishment and affiliation, the other a violent assault on life and identity they were linked by growing colonial perceptions that both were crucial elements of “Nativeness.” Tracing the transformation of concepts of bodily integrity, personal and collective identities, and the sources of human difference, Under the Skin investigates both the lived physical experience and the contested metaphorical power of early American bodies.

Struggling for power on battlefields, in diplomatic gatherings, and in intellectual exchanges, Native Americans and Anglo-Americans found their physical appearances dramatically altered by their interactions with one another. Contested ideas about the nature of human and societal difference translated into altered appearances for many early Americans. In turn, scars and symbols on skin prompted an outpouring of stories as people debated the meaning of such marks. By the late eighteenth century, ideas about the body, phenotype, and culture were increasingly articulated in concepts of race."

To listen to the sample and/or purchase the book, head to Audible here. 

New nonfiction title on Audible

My newest recording went live today on Audible. Belle Starr: The Bandit Queen is by William Yancey Shackleford. 

"Legendary outlaw Belle Starr has been written about and portrayed in various media for well over one hundred years. Born Myra Maybelle Shirley in Missouri in 1848, Belle lived most of her life in Texas. She became notorious after living with and hanging out with members of the James and Younger gangs.

Belle was a crack shot who rode side saddle while engaging in horse thievery, cattle rustling, and holdups. In between these activities, Belle bore two children and was involved with (though not necessarily married to) several men, including Sam Starr.

Belle was murdered in 1889 just 2 days before her 41st birthday. The case is officially considered unsolved. This book was the first of many about Belle and was originally published the same year she died."

To listen to the sample and/or purchase the book, head to Audible here. 

New true crime book now on Audible!

 

Happy to announce my recording of a new true crime book on Audible! This one is called Close To Home: Sexual Abusers and Serials Killers, Memoir and Murder by Janine O'Neill.  

"On January 9, 2002, twelve-year-old Ashley Pond left her family’s apartment in Oregon City, Oregon, to catch her bus to school. Then, she vanished.

Ashley loved her single-parent mother, but she hated her drinking, and the father figures in her life had come and gone. So she had learned to rely on her friends. Recently, however, things in her life had become even more complicated, so when she disappeared, many people believed she’d simply run away.

But Janine O’Neill had prosecuted crimes against children in Oregon City for seven years. She knew, with absolute certainty, that a twelve-year-old in that community would never vanish under the circumstances Ashley reportedly had unless something had gone terribly wrong.

Then, another girl went missing, and the son of a self-proclaimed serial killer identified himself as the prime suspect in both disappearances. O’Neill became obsessed with the story—so obsessed she eventually quit her full-time job and set off on a multistate search into the past with one overriding question: Could anything be scarier than what the public believed had happened to these girls?The answer, she learned, was yes."

To listen to the sample and/or purchase the book, head to Audible here. 

New nonfiction book now on Audible

My latest recording was just released on Audible today:  Sympathy, Madness, and Crime by Karen Roggenkamp.  

"In one of her escapades as a reporter for Joseph Pulitzer's New York World, the renowned Nellie Bly feigned insanity in 1889 and slipped, undercover, behind the grim walls of Blackwell's Island mental asylum. She emerged ten days later with a vivid tale about life in a madhouse. Her asylum articles merged sympathy and sensationalism, highlighting a developing professional identity—that of the American newspaperwoman.

The Blackwell's Island story is just one example of how newspaperwomen used sympathetic rhetoric to depict madness and crime while striving to establish their credentials as professional writers. Working against critics who would deny them access to the newsroom, Margaret Fuller, Fanny Fern, Nellie Bly, and Elizabeth Jordan subverted the charge that women were not emotionally equipped to work for mass-market newspapers. They transformed their supposed liabilities into professional assets, and Sympathy, Madness, and Crime explores how, in writing about insane asylums, the mentally ill, prisons, and criminals, each deployed a highly gendered sympathetic language to excavate a professional space within a male-dominated workplace.

As the periodical market burgeoned, these pioneering, courageous women exemplified how narrative sympathy opened female space within the "hard news" city room of America's largest newspapers. Sympathy, Madness, and Crime offers a new chapter in the unfolding histories of nineteenth-century periodical culture, women's professional authorship, and the narrative construction of American penal and psychiatric institutions."

To listen to the sample and/or purchase the book, head to Audible here.

 

New book out on Audible!

My latest recording debuted on Audible today. Losing Eden: An Environmental History of the American West is by Sara Dant with a foreword by Tom S. Udall. 

"In Losing Eden award-winning historian Sara Dant debunks the myth of the American West as “Eden” and instead embraces a more realistic and complex understanding of a region that has been inhabited and altered by people for tens of thousands of years.

In this lively narrative Dant discusses the key events and topics in the environmental history of the American West, from the Beringia migration, Columbian Exchange, and federal territorial acquisition to post–World War II expansion, resource exploitation, and current climate change issues. Losing Eden is structured around three important themes: balancing economic success and ecological destruction, creating and protecting public lands, and achieving sustainability.

This revised and updated edition incorporates the latest science and thinking. It also features a new chapter on climate change in the American West, a larger reflection on the region’s multicultural history and updated current events. Cohesive and compelling, Losing Eden recognizes the central role of the natural world in the history of the American West and provides important analysis on the continually evolving relationship between the land and its inhabitants."

To listen to the sample and/or purchase the book, head to Audible here. 

 

New history book out on Audible

 

My latest recording just debuted on Audible today!  Black Walden: Slavery and Its Aftermath in Concord, Massachusetts is by Elise Lemire. 

"Concord, Massachusetts has long been heralded as the birthplace of American liberty and American letters. It was here that the first military engagement of the Revolutionary War was fought, and here that Thoreau came to "live deliberately" on the shores of Walden Pond. Between the Revolution and the settlement of the little cabin with the bean rows, however, Walden Woods was home to several generations of freed slaves and their children.

In Black Walden: Slavery and Its Aftermath in Concord, Massachusetts, Elise Lemire brings to life the former slaves of Walden Woods, and the men and women who held them in bondage during the 18th century. After charting the rise of Concord slaveholder John Cuming, Black Walden follows the struggles of Cuming's slave, Brister, as he attempts to build a life for himself after 35 years of enslavement. 

Brister Freeman, as he came to call himself, and some of the town's slaves were able to leverage the political tensions that fueled the American Revolution and force their owners into relinquishing them. Once emancipated, however, the former slaves were permitted to squat on only the most remote and infertile places. Walden Woods was one of them. Here, Freeman and his neighbors farmed, spun linen, made baskets, told fortunes, and otherwise tried to survive in spite of poverty and harassment."

To listen to the sample and/or purchase the book, head to Audible here. 

New true crime book on Audible!

 

My latest recording on Audible is a mixture of a true crime book and a biography/memoir.  A Mind for Murder: The Real Life Files of a Psychic Investigator is by Noreen Renier and was published by Crossroad Press.

"The only psychic ever to lecture at the FBI Academy, Noreen Renier has assisted law-enforcement officials all over the world, working on more than 400 criminal cases. From the discovery and development of her unique talents to becoming a respected figure in the police community, this is the true account of Noreen Renier's remarkable life and career.

Included here are the stories of:

• Her prediction of the assassination attempt on Ronald Reagan.
• The client who was a professional mercenary.
• The police officer suspected of being a rapist and murderer.
• Her involvement in the Laci Peterson murder (she told the police where to find the body).

A Mind for Murder has all the elements of true crime, memoir, and psychic mystery."

To listen to the sample and/or purchase the book, head to Audible here.

My lastest recording on Audible

My latest recording for University Press Audiobooks just debuted on Audible today.  What Workers Say: Decades of Struggle and How to Make Real Opportunity Now is by Roberta Eversen. 

"What have jobs really been like for the past 40 years and what do the workers themselves say about them? In What Workers Say, Roberta Iversen shows that for employees in labor market industries—like manufacturing, construction, printing—as well as those in service-producing jobs, like clerical work, healthcare, food service, retail, and automotive—jobs are often discriminatory, are sometimes dangerous and exploitive, and seldom utilize people’s full range of capabilities. Most importantly, they fail to provide any real opportunity for advancement.

What Workers Say takes its cue from Studs Terkel’s Working, as Iversen interviewed more than 1,200 workers to present stories about their labor market jobs since 1980. She puts a human face on the experiences of a broad range of workers indicating what their jobs were and are truly like. Iversen reveals how transformations in the political economy of waged work have shrunk or eliminated opportunity for workers, families, communities, and productivity. What Workers Say also offers an innovative proposal for compensated civil labor that could enable workers, their communities, labor market organizations, and the national infrastructure to actually flourish."

To listen to the sample and/or purchase the book, head to Audible here.

New nonfiction title on Audible

 

My latest recording on Audible was produced by Spoken Realms.  A treatise on free speech:  The Censorship in Boston by Zechariah Chafee, Jr.

'Censorship, entailing the banning of books works on the stage and film, and public speeches, is not new. During the late 1920s in Boston, Massachusetts, it reached a fever pitch. Book banning was prominent but officials in the city also managed to stifle free artistic expression in theatrical productions, and the right to express ideas in a public forum. The bans were often carried out under the law by religious groups, the serving Mayor of Boston, and even the local police. Zechariah Chafee, Jr. was a professor of law at Harvard University and a staunch advocate of the First Amendment. Here he discusses the policies of 1929 in layman's terms and the various methods censors used to 'protect' the public. In addition to literary and artistic ideas, speeches regarding topics such as politics and birth control were affected.

Chafee published this pamphlet with The Civil Liberties Committee of Massachusetts. Years later, Senator Joseph McCarthy denounced Chafee as 'dangerous' in his work to defend free speech. Today, Chafee is considered a scholar on the First Amendment.'

To listen to the sample and/or purchase the recording, head to Audible here.

New recording debuts on Audible!

 

My latest recording just hit Audible today.  Encounters in Avalanche Country by Diana L. Di Stefano is a nonfiction book published by University Press Audiobooks.

"Every winter, settlers of the US and Canadian Mountain West could expect to lose dozens of lives to deadly avalanches. This constant threat to trappers, miners, railway workers and their families forced individuals and communities to develop knowledge, share strategies, and band together as they tried to survive the extreme conditions of "avalanche country". The result of this convergence, author Diana Di Stefano argues, was a complex network of formal and informal cooperation that used disaster preparedness to engage legal action and instill a sense of regional identity among the many lives affected by these natural disasters.

Encounters in Avalanche Country tells the story of mountain communities' responses to disaster over a century of social change and rapid industrialization. As mining and railway companies triggered new kinds of disasters, ideas about environmental risk and responsibility were increasingly negotiated by mountain laborers, at the elite levels among corporations, and in socially charged civil suits.

Written in a lively and engaging narrative style, Encounters in Avalanche Country uncovers authentic stories of survival struggles, frightening avalanches, and how local knowledge challenged legal traditions that defined avalanches as acts of God. Combining disaster, mining, railroad, and ski histories with the theme of severe winter weather, it provides a new and fascinating perspective on the settlement of the Mountain West."

To listen to the sample and/or purchase the book, head to Audible here.

Release day on Audible for my latest book!

A nice long book for my newest release on Audible.  The Reluctant Spiritualist: The Life of Maggie Fox is by Nancy Rubin Stuart.  Nancy also wrote the book about Marjorie Merriweather Post that I narrated called American Empress. Marjorie actually consulted with the spiritualist Maggie Fox at one point during her life. Here's the info on this book:

"American Spiritualism—a movement that at its peak claimed more than a million followers—was born out of the basic human longing for contact with a loved one lost to death. But Spiritualism's true spark came in 1848 from something no more or less powerful than a bored teenage girl.

This is the first authoritative biography of Maggie Fox, the world-famous medium and cofounder of the Spiritualism movement that swept America in the mid-1800s. 

In 1848, 15-year-old Maggie and her sister Katy created rapping sounds by manipulating their toe joints, practicing until they convinced their parents that their farmhouse was haunted.

By 1853, more than 30,000 mediums were at work with Maggie among the most famous.

But when she denounced the faith in 1888, Spiritualism withered almost as quickly as it had bloomed.

Through the memoirs of the Fox sisters, the letters of Maggie's Arctic explorer husband, contemporary newspaper accounts, and other primary sources, Nancy Rubin Stuart creates a vibrant portrait of a Victorian-era woman at the heart of the controversies of her era.

Maggie Fox's Spiritualistic legacy continues today with mediums, channeling, and celebrity spiritualists.

Yet the origins of American Spiritualism were surprisingly humble. In 1848, 15-year-old Maggie and her sister Katy created rapping sounds by manipulating their toe joints, practicing until they convinced their parents that their farmhouse was haunted. 

What started as a prank soon transformed into a movement. By 1850, Maggie’s séances stunned author James Fenimore Cooper, New York Tribune editor Horace Greeley, and other prominent citizens. Within a matter of weeks, Maggie and her sisters—dubbed the Rochester Rappers by the press—became celebrities.

By 1853, more than 30,000 mediums were at work with Maggie among the most famous.

Award-winning author Nancy Rubin Stuart’s The Reluctant Spiritualist was five years in the making during which time she received a William Randolph Hearst Fellowship from the American Antiquarian Society to research the book. The American Society of Journalists and Authors awarded The Reluctant Spiritualist honorable mention for its 2006 Outstanding Book Awards. It was also nominated for the 2006 History Book Award of the New York Historical Society."

To listen to the sample and/or purchase the book, head to Audible here. 

 

New on Audible!

My latest recording hit Audible yesterday.  This one is a 'how to' for anyone interested in their genealogy: Ancestry: How To Research Your Family History and Climb Your Family Tree by Dr. Trina Boice and Dr. Tracey Long. 

"Learn more about yourself when you learn about your ancestors!

This audiobook will help you know what to do with all of those old family photos sitting in a box and how to connect them to real names and dates. You’ll learn how to use free websites and tools to gather information and build your personal family tree. Find and meet living relatives who can help you research and share more information, including stories, photos, and vital documents.

In addition to the helpful tips and “how-to” information, you will also be inspired as you hear true stories from people just like you who witnessed miracles as they researched their own family information. Try some of the fun and creative ways you can celebrate your family and honor your heritage. Even kids will become interested in helping you search for more information about your family! 

Here is a preview of what you’ll learn:

• How to find information about your ancestors online.
• How to organize the information and records you find.
• What to do when you hit a brick wall in your research.
• How to get information from your ancestors’ tombstones when you can’t travel to the cemeteries where they’re buried.
• How to find heirlooms and artifacts that belonged to your ancestors.
• How to connect with living relatives.
• How to share information with other people who are researching the same ancestors as you are.
• How to get your family and children interested in genealogy.
• How to plan a family reunion.
• How to honor your heritage in creative ways.
• How to qualify for university scholarships based on your heritage and ethnicity. 
• What to do with ancestors who were adopted.
• How to create memorable family events and traditions.

Each chapter offers easy-to-follow tips and gets you started on specific tasks to help you quickly move along in your search for your ancestors."

To listen to the sample and/or purchase the book, head to Audible here. 

 

New recording now on Audible

 

My latest recording just went live on Audible.  Isabella of Castile: Spain's Controversial Queen is by Nancy Rubin Stuart.  I previously recorded another of Nancy's books -- American Empress -- about the life of Marjorie Merriweather Post.  This new one is a great fairly short take on Isabella's life. 

"Originally published in 1991 as a Book of the Month Club Featured, dividend and awarded the Best Nonfiction Book by the American Society of Journalists and Authors, this authoritatively researched portrait of Queen Isabella brings to life one of the most controversial figures in European history -- a woman who was passionate lover to Ferdinand of Aragon, conquered the Moors (Muslims) of Spain, funded Columbus on his famous journey, brought the Renaissance to Spain, and was hated for introducing the Spanish Inquisition. Like many modern career women, Isabella was torn between her workaday obligations, her marriage, and child-rearing. Which was she -- a visionary, a saint, or a she-devil? Listen to Isabella of Castile and decide for yourself.

Who then, was the real Isabella?

Was she, as some people still believe, an unrecognized saint who deserved beatification because of her charitable acts to her subjects, her special concern for widows and orphans, and insistence upon cleansing the church of corruption?

Or was she a heartless bigot -- a religious fanatic who forced conversions of Spanish Moors and Jews to Christianity on pain of death through the instruments of the Spanish Inquisition?

Was she, as history suggests, a brilliant woman -- the only European monarch who understood the implications of a successful transatlantic crossing -- and consequently sponsored Christopher Columbus's famous journey across the ocean seas to the New World.

Who then, was the flesh-and-blood Isabella? As her dramatic biography reveals, the Queen was a very human blend of these three historical images.

Isabella of Castile describes the complex social and psychological forces that drove the queen to become one of history's most famous and quixotic monarchs, a monumental figure who is alternately revered and despised to this very day."

To listen to the sample and/or purchase the book, head to Audible here.

New nonfiction book now on Audible

My latest recording was just published on Audible yesterday.  What do gangster Pretty Boy Floyd, boxer Sonny Liston, and MLK assassin James Earl Ray all have in common?  They were all prisoners at the Missouri State Penitentiary at some time.  The Missouri State Penitentiary: 170 Years inside The Walls by Jamie Pamela Rasmussen is a fascinating look at this prison. 

"Asked how the Missouri State Penitentiary compared to other famous prisons, a historian and former prison administrator replied, “It’s older and meaner.” For 168 years, it was everything other prisons were and more. 

In The Missouri State Penitentiary, Jamie Pamela Rasmussen recounts the long and fascinating history of the place, focusing on the stories of inmates and the struggles by prison officials to provide opportunities for reform while keeping costs down. Tales of prominent prisoners, including Pretty Boy Floyd, Sonny Liston, and James Earl Ray, provide intrigue and insight into the institution’s infamous reputation.

A highlight in the chapter on the Civil War years is the story of George Thompson, who was imprisoned for attempting to help a number of slaves to freedom. The narrative enters the 20th century with the controversy surrounding the various systems of inmate labor; the effort to make the prison self-supporting eventually caused punishment to be driven by factory needs. The example of Firebug Johnson demonstrates how inmates reacted to the prison labor system, while Kate Richards O’Hare’s struggles and efforts to improve conditions in the penitentiary illuminate the role of women in the system at the time. 

A full chapter is devoted to the riot of 1954, and another concentrates on the reforms made in the wake of that catastrophe. Rasmussen also considers the effect inmate lawsuits during the 1980s and 1990s had on prison life before telling the story of the decision to close the prison.

The Missouri State Penitentiary provides a fitting account of an institution that was part of Missouri’s history for well over a century."

To listen to the sample and/or purchase the book, head to Audible here.

Latest True Crime Book on Audible!

I'm really excited about this particular new release I narrated.  This is the first time this book, The Death Shift: Nurse Genene Jones and the Texas Baby Murders by Peter Elkind, has been available on audio.  I had been in discussions with Peter for over two years to record this book. The delay was due to the very real possibility of Genene Jones being released on parole.  Peter reports on the family members, attorneys, private investigators, and others who fought to keep Jones behind bars.  

"Updated with dramatic developments and new murder charges, filed in the coldest of cold cases, to keep a serial baby-killer behind bars. This tale is every parent's worst nightmare: the horrifying account of a Texas nurse who killed children under her care, and the hospital that covered it up. 

It's 1980, and Genene Jones is working in the pediatric ICU at San Antonio's charity hospital, on what soon came to be known as "the Death Shift". From 3-11 PM, infants under her care begin experiencing unexpected emergencies - and dying - in alarming numbers, prompting rumors that there is a murderer among the staff. This chilling epidemic continued unabated for more than a year, before Jones was quietly sent off - with a good recommendation - to a small-town pediatric clinic. There, eight children under her care mysteriously stopped breathing in a single month - and a 15-month-old baby girl died. 

In May 1983, Jones was finally arrested, leading to trials that revealed her strange attraction to medical emergencies and a desire to "play God" with the lives of the children under her care. More shocking still, as The Death Shift reveals, the hospital had volunteered nothing to law-enforcement authorities about Jones' horrific deeds, allowing her spree to continue and prompting grieving parents to ask: Why? Elkind chronicles Jones chilling rampage, while also turning his piercing gaze onto those responsible for its cover-up. 

This updated edition is a tale with fresh relevance, revealing how prosecutors raced to keep Jones behind bars, despite her scheduled mandatory release from a Texas prison in early 2018, after one-third of a 99-year murder sentence; Jones' cryptic secret prison confessions - followed by giddy exultations to a band of evangelical allies about her expected release; and how prosecutors finally won a guilty plea from Jones on the eve of a new murder trial."

To listen to the sample and/or purchase the book, head to Audible here.

More true crime on Audible!

My latest recording just landed on Audible.  Another true crime book from WildBlue Press.  Raging On by Paula May is a sequel to her book First Degree Rage.  

"From the author of First Degree Rage: The True Story of "The Assassin", an Obsession, and Murder comes the ongoing and chilling true crime saga of L. C. Underwood, the obsessively jealous police officer from North Carolina who shocked an entire city with his unsuspected reign of terror in the lives of his ex-fiancé Kay Weden, a woman he refused to let go, her son Jason whom he despised, and her mother Catherine Miller who got in his way. Underwood arrogantly evades justice for his heinous crimes until Detective Paula May and her investigative team uncovers who he really is, and he is found guilty of the First Degree Kidnapping and Murder of Viktor Gunnarsson, Kay’s new boyfriend. But is Underwood also responsible for the brutal murder of Catherine Miller that occurred mere days after Gunnarsson’s demise?

Sentenced to life in prison plus 40 years, Underwood has no intention of staying in prison, and vows not to stop until he exacts revenge on those he blames for his current predicament. His thirst for revenge will not be quenched until more blood is shed. Underwood rages on, plotting his next move, enlisting others to perform the evil deeds he imagines. Wreaking havoc in the lives of Kay, Jason, Detective May, and others, he sends them all on an emotional roller coaster ride that never seems to end. Will they ever find peace? Will Catherine Miller’s murderer ever be brought to justice? Will Underwood’s reign of terror ever come to an end?"

To listen to the sample and/or purchase the book, head to Audible here.

New nonfiction full-cast recording from Voices of Today

 I'm always happy to participate in full-cast productions with Voices of Today.  This one is nonfiction and involves the noted American lawyer, Clarence Darrow. Debate on Capital Punishment by Emanuel Haldeman-Julius.

"Held at New York, on 27th October 1924

In a public debate held at the Manhattan Opera House, Clarence Darrow argued that not one of the 19 men under sentence of death at Sing Sing Prison would have been convicted if they could have afforded good attorneys. He was opposed by Judge Alfred J. Talley of General Sessions, who argued for the retention of the death penalty for murder. The debate commenced with an address by Lewis Lawes, who was the warden at Sing Sing.

Cast

Narrator: Lee Ann Howlett

Benjamin Javits - Announcer - Marty Krz

Lewis Lawes - Temporary Chairman - John Burlinson

Louis Marshall - Chairman - Marty Krz

Judge Alfred J. Talley - Debater (affirmative) - Ben Stevens

Clarence Darrow - Debater (negative) - Ron Altman

A Voice/chorus - Lee Ann Howlett"

 

To listen to the sample and/or purchase the book, head to Audible here.

 

A solo true crime book and a full-cast history recording!

Two of my latest recordings hit Audible recently.  First up is Cold Blooded: A True Crime Story of a Murderous Teenage Vampire Cult by Frank Stanfied. This one's from WildBlue Press.

"Investigators and Central Florida residents were horrified when 16-year-old vampire cult leader Rod Ferrell was arrested and charged with bludgeoning a cult member's parents. When they realized the slain couple's 15-year-old daughter was missing, they feared she was a victim, too. 

Detectives and journalists swarming over three states soon uncovered a web of blood-drinking occult rituals, illicit sex, wildly dysfunctional families, and spiritual warfare. Then, when police officers captured the teens, they discovered that the murdered couple's daughter was among them. But was she a victim or a participant? 

Ferrell faced the death penalty, sparking Constitutional battles over the ultimate punishment, juveniles in the court system, free press versus a defendant's right to a fair trial, and psychologists who worked to save him and prosecutors who wanted him dead. 

More than 20 years later, the battles continue with new court rulings. Is he a changed man deserving freedom? Or is he still gaming the system, as prosecutors and his victims' family members believe? 

Decide for yourself after listening to Cold Blooded by veteran newspaper reporter Frank Stanfield, who has covered the case from the beginning in November 1996 and sheds new light on one of the darkest killers in modern history."

To listen to the sample and/or purchase the book, head to Audible here.

 

The second recording is a full-cast production from Voices of Today.  Debate on Prohibition: Clarence Darrow vs John Haynes Holmes by Emanuel Haldeman-Julius, Clarence Darrow, and John Haynes Holmes. It's always a pleasure to be a part of these.

Held at New York, on 14th December, 1924

Under the auspices of the League for Political Discussion, in a meeting held at the Manhattan Opera House, Rev. John Haynes Holmes of the Community Church, taking the positive, and Clarence Darrow, taking the negative, debated the following proposition: "A Resolution that the United States should continue the policy of prohibition as defined in the 18th Amendment." The meeting was chaired by Senator Royal S. Copeland and introduced by Benjamin Javits.

Cast

Narrator: Lee Ann Howlett

Benjamin Javits - Temporary Chairman - Marty Krz

Royal S. Copeland - Chairman - John Burlinson

Rev. John Haynes Holmes - Debater (affirmative) - Ben Stevens

Clarence Darrow - Debater (negative) - Ron Altman

You can listen to the sample and/or purchase the book from Audible here.

A deep dive book on hoarding

 

My latest book just hit Audible.  This one is a deep dive book on  hoarding --  Possessed: A Cultural History of Hoarding by Rebecca R. Falkoff.

"In Possessed, Rebecca R. Falkoff asks how hoarding - once a paradigm of economic rationality - came to be defined as a mental illness. Hoarding is unique among the disorders included in the American Psychiatric Association's DSM-5 because its diagnosis requires the existence of a material entity: the hoard. Possessed therefore considers the hoard as an aesthetic object produced by clashing perspectives about the meaning or value of objects.

The 2000s have seen a surge of cultural interest in hoarding and those whose possessions overwhelm their living spaces. Analyzing themes and structures of hoarding across a range of literary and visual texts, Falkoff traces the fraught materialities of the present to cluttered spaces of modernity: bibliomaniacs' libraries, flea markets, crime scenes, dust heaps, and digital archives. Possessed shows how the figure of the hoarder has come to personify the economic, epistemological, and ecological conditions of modernity."

To listen to a sample and/or purchase the book, head to Audible here.

New nonfiction book on Audible

My latest recording just debuted on Audible.  Kidney to Share by Martha Gershun and John D. Lantos, M.D., is a truly inspiring story of one woman's quest to donate a kidney to a stranger.

"In Kidney to Share, Martha Gershun tells the story of her decision to donate a kidney to a stranger. She takes listeners through the complex process by which such donors are vetted to ensure that they are physically and psychologically fit to take the risk of a major operation. John D. Lantos, a physician and bioethicist, places Gershun's story in the larger context of the history of kidney transplantation and the ethical controversies that surround living donors. Together, they help listeners understand the discoveries that made transplantation relatively safe and effective as well as the legal, ethical, and economic policies that make it feasible.

Gershun and Lantos explore the steps involved in recovering and allocating organs. They analyze the differences that arise depending on whether the organ comes from a living donor or one who has died. They observe the expertise and the shortcomings of doctors, nurses, and other professionals and describe the burdens that we place on people who are willing to donate. In this raw and vivid book, Gershun and Lantos ask us to consider just how far society should go in using one person's healthy body parts in order to save another person."

It was an honor to tell Martha's story.  To listen to the sample and/or purchase the book, head to Audible here.