Written By : Sarah Vowell
Peformed By : Various
Simon & Schuster
Runtime : 7 hours
Categories : Travel
American
Humor
Download Price : $15.95
Sarah Vowell exposes the glorious conundrums of American history and culture with wit, probity, and an irreverent sense of humor. With Assassination Vacation, she takes us on a road trip like no other--a journey to the pit stops of American political murder and through the myriad ways they have been used for fun and profit, for political and cultural advantage.
From Buffalo to Alaska, Washington to the Dry Tortugas, Vowell visits locations immortalized and influenced by the spilling of politically important blood, reporting as she goes with her trademark blend of wisecracking humor, remarkable honesty, and thought-provoking criticism. We learn about the jinx that was Robert Todd Lincoln (present at the assassinations of Presidents Lincoln, Garfield, and McKinley) and witness the politicking that went into the making of the Lincoln Memorial. The resulting narrative is much more than an entertaining and informative travelogue--it is the disturbing and fascinating story of how American death has been manipulated by popular culture, including literature, architecture, sculpture, and--the author's favorite--historical tourism.
Though the themes of loss and violence are explored and we make detours to see how the Republican Party became the Republican Party. There are lighter diversions into the lives of the three presidents and their assassins, including mummies, show tunes, mean-spirited totem poles, and a nineteenth-century biblical sex cult.
IN ORDER OF APPEARANCE:
Conan O'Brien Robert Todd Lincoln
Eric Bogosian John Wilkes Booth
Stephen King President Abraham Lincoln
Dave Eggers Mike Ryan
Catherine Keener Gretchen Worden
Jon Stewart President James A. Garfield
Tony Kushner John Humphrey Noyes
Brad Bird Charles Guiteau & Emma Goldman
Daniel Handler President William McKinley
Greg Giraldo President Theodore Roosevelt
David Rakoff Leon Czolgosz
About the Author:
Sarah Vowell is a contributing editor for public radio's This American Life and has written for Time, Esquire, GQ, Spin, Salon, McSweeneys, The Village Voice, and the Los Angeles Times. She is the author of Radio On, Take the Cannoli, and The Partly Cloudy Patriot. She lives in New York City.
Written By : Joshua Piven and David Borgenicht
Peformed By : Penn Jillette
Listen & Live
Runtime : 3 hours
Categories : Travel
Adult
Download Price : $11.00
Always be ready for the worst - you're at risk from the moment you step outside your front door! Here are step-by-step instructions on what you need to know NOW:
- How to Cross a Piranha-Infested River
- How to Stop a Runaway Train
- How to Build a Shelter in the Snow
- How to Treat a Scorpion Sting
- How to Survive a Sandstorm
- How to Survive an Airplane Crash
- How to Escape from the Trunk of a Car
- How to pass a Bribe
...plus an appendix of essential travel strategies, phrases, and gestures to use - and avoid.
Joshua Piven and David Borgenicht are both residents of Philadelphia. They have appeared on 20/20, Today, National Enquirer TV, as well as in Time, USA Today, The New Yorker and People. Go to http://www.worstcasescenarios.com for updates, new scenarios, and more!
Penn Jillette, who has been called the most wired magician on this planet, is the more gregarious half of Penn & Teller - the world's most famous magic duo. Since 1975, Penn & Teller's award-winning theater show has been a long-running hit on and off Broadway.
Written By : Bruce Feiler
Peformed By : Bruce Feiler
Harper Collins US
Runtime : 2 hours
Categories : Religious
Travel
Download Price : $14.95
On a visit to Jerusalem, Bruce Feiler has a revelation; the stories of the Bible occurred in real places - places he could visit today. So he sets out on a perilous ten-thousand-mile journey retracing the greatest stories ever told.
From the base of Mount Ararat, where he meets a mysterious man who claims to have found Noah's ark, to the edge of the Dead Sea, where he climbs salt pillars in the lost cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, Feiler discovers that the Bible still lives in the landscape. He visits the desert outpost where Abraham first heard the words of God and has an unexpected encounter alongside the legendary burning bush. And finally he climbs Mount Sinai, where Moses received the Ten Commandments.
In each place, Feiler eloquently explores how geography affects the Bible and how his journey has influenced his faith. Walking the Bible is both a heart-pounding adventure and an uplifting personal quest that will forever change your view of some of history's most memorable events.
Written By : Washington Irving
Peformed By : Ralph Cosham
Blackstone Audio Inc
Runtime : 8 hours
Categories : Travel
Classics
Download Price : $16.95
A heady mix of romantic travel guide, Moorish legends, and historical fact, enhanced by Spanish guitar music
Written in 1831, Washington Irvings dreamlike description of the Alhambra, the beautiful Moorish castle that defined the height of Moorish civilization, and of the surrounding territory of Granada remains one of the most entertaining travelogues ever written of this region in Spain.
Enhanced here with exquisite Spanish guitar music, the narrative is a heady mix of historical fact, medieval myth and mystery, sensual descriptions, and an appreciation for a civilization that valued beauty, philosophy, literature, science, and the arts on an equal level with warrior skills. Secret chambers, desperate battles, imprisoned princesses, palace ghosts, and fragrant gardens, described in a wistful and dreamlike eloquence, will transport listeners to a paradise of their own.
Washington Irving (1783-1859) was born in New York and studied law; on account of his poor health he went to Europe in 1804. He visited Rome, Paris, the Netherlands and London, and in 1806 returned to New York where he was admitted to the bar. His first writing was in Salmagundi (1807), a semi-monthly sheet in imitation of the Spectator which ran for twenty numbers. His first work, A History of New York, by Diedrich Knickerbocker (1809), was a good-natured burlesque upon the old Dutch settlers of Manhattan Island.
Ralph Cosham has acted in numerous roles for film and TV and in more than one hundred professional theater roles in addition to narrating books for Blackstone Audiobooks. He lives in Reston, Virginia.
|
