Arntfeld, Michael. Mad City: The True Story of the Campus Murders that America Forgot. Brilliance. ISBN 9781536666342. Read by Jonathan Davis. In fall 1967, friends Linda Tomaszewski and Christine Rothschild are freshmen at the University of Wisconsin. The students in the hippie college town of Madison are letting down their hair—and their guards. But amid the peace rallies lurks a killer. When Christine’s body is found, her murder sends shockwaves across college campuses, and the Age of Aquarius gives way to a decade of terror. Linda knows the killer, but when police ignore her pleas, he slips away. For the next 40 years, Linda embarks on a cross-country quest to find him. When she discovers a book written by the murderer’s mother, she learns Christine was not his first victim—or his last. The slayings continue, and a single perpetrator emerges: the Capital City Killer. As police focus on this new lead, Linda receives a disturbing note from the madman himself. Can she stop him before he kills again? Blakeslee, Nate. American Wolf: A True Story of Survival and Obsession in the West. Books on Tape. ISBN 9780525493297. Read by Mark Bramhall. Once abundant in North America, wolves were hunted to near extinction in the lower 48 states by the 1920s. But in recent decades, conservationists have brought wolves back to the Rockies, igniting a battle over the very soul of the West. Blakeslee tells the story of one of these wolves, O-Six, a charismatic alpha female named for the year of her birth. Uncommonly powerful, with gray fur and faint black ovals around each eye, O-Six is a kind and merciful leader, a fiercely intelligent fighter, and a doting mother. She is beloved by wolf watchers, and becomes something of a social media star, with followers around the world. But as she raises her pups and protects her pack, O-Six is challenged on all fronts: by hunters, who compete with wolves for the elk they both prize; by cattle ranchers who are losing livestock and have the ear of politicians; and by other Yellowstone wolves who are vying for control of the park’s stunningly beautiful Lamar Valley. Brantmark, Niki. Lagom: Not Too Little, Not Too Much: The Swedish Art of Living a Balanced, Happy Life. HarperAudio. ISBN 9781538479629. Reader TBA. Derived from the Swedish phrase Lagom är bäst, meaning “the right amount is best; in moderation, in balance,” lagom is a deeply held philosophy closely tied to the Swedish cultural and social ideology of fairness and equality. Deeply ingrained in the Swedish psyche, lagom is about enjoying balance in every aspect of life—from work and leisure to family and food and everything in between. Chernow, Ron. Grant. Books on Tape. ISBN 9780525529224. Read by Mark Bramhall. Ulysses S. Grant's life has typically been misunderstood. All too often he is caricatured as a chronic loser and an inept businessman, or as the triumphant but brutal Union general of the Civil War. But these stereotypes don't come close to capturing him, as Chernow shows in this biography, the first to provide a complete understanding of the general and president whose fortunes rose and fell with dizzying speed and frequency. Coates, Ta-Nehisi. We Were Eight Years in Power: An American Tragedy. Books on Tape. ISBN 9780525494829. Reader TBA. “We were eight years in power” was the lament of Reconstruction-era black politicians as the American experiment in multiracial democracy ended with the return of white supremacist rule in the South. Now Coates explores the tragic echoes of that history in our own time: the unprecedented election of a black president followed by a vicious backlash that fueled the election of the man Coates argues is America’s “first white president.” But the story of these present-day eight years is not just about presidential politics. This book also examines the new voices, ideas, and movements for justice that emerged over this period—and the effects of the persistent, haunting shadow of our nation’s old and unreconciled history. Coates powerfully examines the events of the Obama era from his intimate and revealing perspective—the point of view of a young writer who begins the journey in an unemployment office in Harlem and ends it in the Oval Office, interviewing a president. Dauber, Jeremy. Jewish Comedy: A Serious History. Blackstone. ISBN 9781538432143. Read by the author. Dauber traces the origins of Jewish comedy and its development from Biblical times to the age of Twitter. Organizing his book thematically into what he calls the seven strands of Jewish comedy—including the satirical, the witty, and the vulgar—Dauber explores the ways Jewish comedy has dealt with persecution, assimilation, and diaspora through the ages. He explains the rise and fall of popular comic archetypes such as the Jewish mother, the JAP, and the schlemiel and schlimazel. And he explores an enormous range of comic masterpieces, from Talmudic rabbi jokes, Yiddish satires, Borscht Belt skits, Seinfeld, and Curb Your Enthusiasm to the work of such masters as Sholem Aleichem, Franz Kafka, the Marx Brothers, Woody Allen, Joan Rivers, Philip Roth, Sarah Silverman, and Jon Stewart. Doughty, Caitlin. From Here to Eternity. Recorded Books. ISBN 9781501973932. Read by the author. Fascinated by our pervasive terror of dead bodies, mortician Doughty set out to discover how other cultures care for their dead. In rural Indonesia, she observes a man clean and dress his grandfather's mummified body.She meets Bolivian natitas (cigarette-smoking, wish-granting human skulls), and introduces us to a Japanese kotsuage, in which relatives use chopsticks to pluck their loved ones' bones from cremation ashes. With curiosity and morbid humor, Doughty encounters vividly decomposed bodies and participates in compelling, powerful death practices almost entirely unknown in America. Duncan, Mike. The Storm Before the Storm: The Beginning of the End of the Roman Republic. Hachette Audio. ISBN 9781549167775. Read by the author. The creator of the podcast series The History of Rome brings to life the story of the tumultuous years that set the stage for the fall of the Roman Republic. The Roman Republic was one of the most remarkable achievements in the history of civilization. After its founding in 509 BCE, it grew from an unremarkable Italian city-state to the dominant superpower of the Mediterranean world. Through it all, the Romans never allowed a single man to seize control of the state. But then Rome exploded out of Italy and began to conquer a world filled with petty tyrants, barbarian chieftains, and despotic kings, and the very success of the Republic proved to be its undoing. Elnoury, Tamer & Kevin Maurer. American Radical: Inside the World of an Undercover Muslim FBI Agent. Books on Tape. ISBN 9780525589518. Read by Peter Ganim. A longtime undercover agent, Tamer Elnoury joined an elite counterterrorism unit after September 11. Its express purpose is to gain the trust of terrorists whose goals are to take out as many Americans in as public and as devastating a way possible. It's a furious race against the clock for Tamer and his unit to stop them before they can implement their plans. Yet as new as this war still is, the techniques are as old as time: listen, record, and prove terrorist intent. Because of his ongoing work for the FBI, Elnoury writes under a pseudonym. Farzad, Roben. Hotel Scarface: Where Cocaine Cowboys Partied and Plotted to Control Miami. Books on Tape. ISBN 9780525498674. Read by Jonathan Davis. In the seventies, coke hit Miami with the full force of a hurricane, and no place attracted dealers and dopers like Coconut Grove’s Mutiny at Sailboat Bay. Hollywood royalty, rock stars, and models flocked to the hotel’s club to order bottle after bottle of champagne and to snort lines alongside narcos, hit men, and gunrunners, all while marathon orgies burned upstairs in elaborate fantasy suites. Amid the boatloads of powder and cash reigned the new kings of Miami: three waves of Cuban immigrants vying to dominate the trafficking of one of the most lucrative commodities ever known to man. But as the kilos—and bodies—began to pile up, the Mutiny became target number one for law enforcement. Feldman, Noah. The Three Lives of James Madison: Genius, Partisan, President. Books on Tape. ISBN 9780525526025. Reader TBA. Over the course of his life, James Madison changed the United States three times: First, he designed the Constitution, led the struggle for its adoption and ratification, then drafted the Bill of Rights. As an older, cannier politician he co-founded the original Republican party, setting the course of American political partisanship. Finally, having pioneered a foreign policy based on economic sanctions, he took the United States into a high-risk conflict, becoming the first wartime president and, despite the odds, winning. Gaines, Chip. Capital Gaines. Brilliance. ISBN 9781543637328. Reader TBA. Long before the world took notice, Gaines was a serial entrepreneur who was always ready for the next challenge, even if it didn’t quite work out as planned. Whether it was buying a neighborhood laundromat or talking a bank into a loan for some equipment to start a lawn-mowing service, Chip always knew that the most important thing was to take that first step. Here he relives some of his craziest antics and the lessons learned along the way. Gates, Henry Louis Jr. 100 Amazing Facts About the Negro. Books on Tape. ISBN 9781524755331. Read by the author. The first edition of Joel Augustus Rogers’s now legendary 100 Amazing Facts About the Negro with Complete Proof, published in 1957, was billed as “A Negro ‘Believe It or Not.’” Rogers’s little book was priceless because he was delivering enlightenment and pride, steeped in historical research, to a people too long starved on the lie that they were worth nothing. But Rogers was not always shy about embellishing the “facts” and minimizing ambiguity. Here Gates gives us a corrective yet loving homage to Roger’s work. Relying on the latest scholarship, Gates leads us on a romp through African, diasporic, and African American history in question-and-answer format. Among the one hundred questions: Who were Africa’s first ambassadors to Europe? Why did free black people living in the South before the end of the Civil War stay there? Who was the first black head of state in modern Western history? Gessen, Masha. The Future Is History: How Totalitarianism Reclaimed Russia. Books on Tape. ISBN 9780525497950. Read by the author. Gessen follows the lives of four people born at what promised to be the dawn of democracy. Each of them came of age with unprecedented expectations, some as the children and grandchildren of the architects of the new Russia, each with newfound aspirations of their own—as entrepreneurs, activists, thinkers, and writers, sexual and social beings. Gessen charts their paths against the machinations of the regime that would crush them all, and against the war it waged on understanding itself, which ensured the unobstructed reemergence of the old Soviet order in the form of today’s terrifying and seemingly unstoppable mafia state. Giovanni, Nikki. A Good Cry: What We Learn from Tears and Laughter. HarperAudio. ISBN 9781538455524. Reader TBA. Giovanni describes the joy and peril of aging and recalls the violence that permeated her parents’ marriage and her early life. She pays homage to the people who have given her life meaning and joy: her grandparents, who took her in and saved her life; the poets and thinkers who have influenced her; and the students who have surrounded her. Nikki also celebrates her good friend, Maya Angelou, and the many years of friendship, poetry, and kitchen-table laughter they shared before Angelou’s death in 2014. Gubser, Steven S. & Frans Pretorius. The Little Book of Black Holes. Recorded Books. ISBN 9781501976636. Reader TBA. After introducing the basics of the special and general theories of relativity, this book describes black holes both as astrophysical objects and theoretical "laboratories" in which physicists can test their understanding of gravitational, quantum, and thermal physics. From Schwarzschild black holes to rotating and colliding black holes, and from gravitational radiation to Hawking radiation and information loss, Gubser and Pretorius use creative thought experiments and analogies to explain their subject accessibly. They also describe the decades-long quest to observe the universe in gravitational waves, which recently resulted in the LIGO observatories' detection of the distinctive gravitational wave "chirp" of two colliding black holes—the first direct observation of black holes' existence. Hadeed, Kristen. Permission to Screw Up: How I Learned to Lead by Doing (Almost) Everything Wrong. Books on Tape. ISBN 9780525499374. Read by the author. Hadeed unintentionally launched Student Maid, a cleaning company that hires students, while attending the University of Florida in 2007. Since then, Student Maid has employed hundreds of people and is widely recognized for its industry-leading retention rate and its culture of trust, accountability, and compassion. But Kristen and her company were no overnight sensa­tion. In fact, they were almost nothing at all. A few months into her new venture, disaster struck when 75 percent of her cleaning team quit on the same day. The mistakes leading to that mass walkout weren’t her first, and definitely wouldn’t be her last. But that hu­miliating experience sparked her obsession with learn­ing how to be a better leader and inspired her to make Student Maid a place her people couldn’t imagine leaving. Haramis, Nick, ed. Courage Is Contagious: And Other Reasons To Be Grateful for Michelle Obama. Books on Tape. ISBN 9780525527961. Reader TBA. Haramis has assembled 19 essays from prizewinning writers, Hollywood stars, and political leaders—all of whom have been moved and influenced by Mrs. Obama’s extraordinary example of grace in power. Here are original testimonials from Gloria Steinem, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Alice Waters, and Charlamagne tha God, among others. Presidential biographer Jon Meacham supplies historical perspective. Actress Tracee Ellis Ross suggests that Mrs. Obama “provided an antidote to all the false representations of black women that have inundated us for centuries.” Anna Wintour and designer Jason Wu celebrate the former first lady’s impact as an international fashion icon. Two eighth-grade girls—one in training to be a boxer—talk about how Mrs. Obama has emboldened them to be themselves. Harden, Blaine. King of Spies: The Dark Reign of America's Spymaster in Korea. Books on Tape. ISBN 9780525500063. Read by Mark Bramhall. In 1946, master sergeant Donald Nichols was repairing jeeps on the sleepy island of Guam when he caught the eye of recruiters from the army's Counter Intelligence Corps. Though he lacked the pedigree of most U.S. spies—Nichols was a 7th grade dropout—he quickly metamorphosed from army mechanic to black ops phenomenon. He insinuated himself into the affections of America’s chosen puppet in South Korea, President Syngman Rhee, and became a pivotal player in the Korean War. But Nichols's triumphs had a dark side. Immersed in a world of torture and beheadings, he became a spymaster with his own secret base, his own covert army, and his own rules. He recruited agents from refugee camps and prisons, sending many to their deaths on reckless missions. His closeness to Rhee meant that he witnessed—and did nothing to stop or even report—the slaughter of tens of thousands of South Korean civilians in anticommunist purges. Howard, David. Chasing Phil: The Adventures of Two Undercover Agents with the World's Most Charming Con Man. Books on Tape. ISBN 9780525499213. Reader TBA. 1977, the Thunderbird Motel. J.J. Wedick and Jack Brennan—two fresh-faced, maverick FBI agents—were about to embark on one of their agency's first wire-wearing undercover missions. Their target? Charismatic, globetrotting con man Phil Kitzer, possibly the world's greatest swindler. But as the young agents, playing the role of proteges and co-conspirators, became further entangled in Phil's outrageous schemes over their months on the road, they also grew to respect him—even care for him. Meanwhile, Phil began to think of Jack and J.J. as best friends, sharing hotel rooms and inside jokes with them. Plunging into the field with no undercover training, the agents battled a creaky bureaucracy on their adventures with Phil, hoping the FBI would recognize the importance of their mission. Even as they grew closer to Phil, they recognized that their endgame—the swindler's arrest—was drawing near. Jacobs, Alan. How To Think. Books on Tape. ISBN 9780525500124. Reader TBA. Most of us don’t want to think, Jacobs writes. Thinking is trouble. Thinking can force us out of familiar, comforting habits, and it can complicate our relationships with like-minded friends. Finally, thinking is slow, and that’s a problem when our habits of consuming information (mostly online) leave us lost in the spin cycle of social media, partisan bickering, and confirmation bias. Jacobs diagnoses the many forces that act on us to prevent thinking—forces that have only worsened in the age of Twitter, “alternative facts,” and information overload—and he also dispels the many myths we hold about what it means to think well. Jacobs digs into the nuts and bolts of the cognitive process, offering hope that each of us can reclaim our mental lives from the impediments that plague us all. Lloyd, Jason. The Blueprint: LeBron James, Cleveland's Deliverance, and the Making of the Modern NBA. Books on Tape. ISBN 9780525499701. Reader TBA. In 2010, LeBron James left the Cleveland Cavaliers. That same year, Lloyd began to cover the team for the Akron Beacon Journal, LeBron's hometown newspaper. The story he uncovered started as a tragedy but ended in incredible triumph. Back in 2010, starting in the days, weeks, and months after LeBron left, the Cavs hatched a plan to get LeBron back. The plan was daring, audacious, and spectacularly successful. It incorporated several losing seasons, some highly risky draft picks, and an entirely new understanding of how championship teams are built and maintained. Mahnke, Aaron. The World of Lore: Monstrous Creatures. Books on Tape. ISBN 9780525595281. Read by the author. They live in shadows—deep in the forest, late in the night, in the dark recesses of our minds. They’re spoken of in stories and superstitions, relics of an unenlightened age, old wives’ tales, passed down through generations. Yet no matter how wary and jaded we have become, as individuals or as a society, a part of us remains vulnerable to them: werewolves and wendigos, poltergeists and vampires, angry elves and vengeful spirits. The host of the hit podcast Lore serves as a guide on a fascinating journey through the history of these terrifying creatures, exploring not only the legends but what they tell us about ourselves. Mandela, Nelson & Mandla Langa. Dare Not Linger. Macmillan Audio. ISBN 9781427292353. Reader TBA. This is the story of Mandela’s presidency, drawing heavily on the memoir he began to write as he prepared to finish his term as president, but was unable to finish. Now the acclaimed South African writer Langa has completed the task using Mandela’s unfinished draft, detailed notes that Mandela made as events were unfolding, and a wealth of previously unseen archival material. Merriman, John. Ballad of the Anarchist Bandits: The Crime Spree That Gripped Belle Epoque Paris. Blackstone. ISBN 9781549195372. Reader TBA. Paris, 1911. The Bonnot Gang, led by the coarse Jules Bonnot, captured the minds of a nation with their Robin Hood-esque capers. With guns blazing, the Bonnot Gang robbed banks and wealthy Parisians and killed anyone who got in their way in spectacularly cinematic fashion—all in the name of their particular brand of anarchism. Merriman describes the Bonnot Gang’s murderous tear and the Parisian police force’s botched efforts to stop them. At the heart of the book are two anarchist idealists who wanted to find an alternative to Bonnot’s crimes and the French government’s unchecked violence: Victor Kibaltchiche and Rirette Maîtrejean. Mipham, Sakyong. The Lost Art of Good Conversation. Books on Tape. ISBN 9780525496250. Reader TBA. In a world of iPhones, social media, and email, we are all in constant connection with one another. Then why are so many people feeling burned out, distant from colleagues, and abandoned by family and friends? Mipham uses the basic principles of the Shambhala tradition—-meditation and a sincere belief in the inherent wisdom, compassion, and courage of all beings—to help readers to listen and speak more mindfully with loved ones, co-workers, strangers, and even ourselves. Mipham provides inspiring ideas and practical tips on how to be more present in your day-to-day life, helping us to communicate in ways that elevates the dignity of everyone involved. Montillo, Roseanne. Fire on the Track: Betty Robinson and the Triumph of the Early Olympic Women. Books on Tape. ISBN 9780451482525. Read by Adenrele Ojo. When Betty Robinson assumed the starting position at the 1928 Olympic Games in Amsterdam, she was participating in what was only her fourth-ever organized track meet. She crossed the finish line as a gold medalist and the fastest woman in the world. But at the top of her game, her career (and life) almost came to a tragic end when a plane she and her cousin were piloting crashed. Betty, once a natural runner who always coasted to victory, soon found herself fighting to walk. While Betty was recovering, the other women of track and field were given the chance to shine in the Los Angeles Games, building on Betty's pioneering role. Stars like Babe Didrikson and Stella Walsh showed the world what women could do. And—miraculously—through grit and countless hours of training, Betty earned her way onto the 1936 Olympic team, again locking her sights on gold as she and her American teammates went up against the German favorites in Hitler's Berlin. Okeowo, Alexis. A Moonless, Starless Sky: Ordinary Women and Men Fighting Extremism in Africa. Blackstone. ISBN 9781478997023. Reader TBA. Okeowo weaves together four narratives that form a powerful tapestry of modern Africa: a young couple, kidnap victims of Joseph Kony’s LRA; a Mauritanian waging a lonely campaign against modern-day slavery; a women’s basketball team flourishing amid war-torn Somalia; and a vigilante who takes up arms against the extremist group Boko Haram. This debut book illuminates the inner lives of ordinary people doing the extraordinary—lives that are too often hidden, underreported, or ignored by the rest of the world. Orth, Maureen. Vulgar Favors: The Assassination of Gianni Versace. Books on Tape. ISBN 9780525591986. Reader TBA. Two months before Gianni Versace was murdered on the steps of his Miami Beach mansion by Andrew Cunanan, Orth was investigating the serial killer for Vanity Fair. Culled from interviews with more than 400 people and insights from thousands of pages of police reports, Orth tells the complete story of Cunanan, his unwitting victims, and the moneyed, hedonistic world in which they lived and died. She reveals how Cunanan met his superstar victim, why police and the FBI repeatedly failed to catch Cunanan, and why other victims’ families stonewalled the investigation, as well as the controversial findings of the Versace autopsy report. Puchner, Martin. The Written World: The Power of Stories to Shape People, History, Civilization. Books on Tape. ISBN 9780525524588. Read by Arthur Morey. At the heart of this book are works, some long-lost and rediscovered, that have shaped civilization: the first written masterpiece, the Epic of Gilgamesh; Ezra’s Hebrew Bible, created as scripture; the teachings of Buddha, Confucius, Socrates, and Jesus; and the first great novel in world literature, The Tale of Genji, written by a Japanese woman known as Murasaki. Visiting Baghdad, Puchner tells of Scheherazade and the stories of One Thousand and One Nights, and in the Americas we watch the astonishing survival of the Maya epic Popol Vuh. Cervantes, who invented the modern novel, battles pirates both real (when he is taken prisoner) and literary (when a fake sequel to Don Quixote is published). Puchner also chronicles the inventions—writing technologies, the printing press, the book itself—that have shaped religion, politics, commerce, people, and history. Stavis, Rachel H. Sister of Darkness: The Chronicles of a Modern Exorcist. Blackstone. ISBN 9781538455708. Reader TBA. As a secular exorcist, Stavis has cleansed thousands of tormented people. But for many years, the horror screenwriter and novelist denied her gift. As a little girl, she began to see “monsters” floating around her bedroom or attached to other children. Told it was only her imagination, Stavis learned to mute the things she saw. But a series of events in adulthood forced her to acknowledge her unique ability and embrace her power to heal. Since then, Rachel has dedicated her life to helping others dispel these forces feeding off of us. Performing her services pro bono, she quietly worked in the shadows, until she unknowingly revealed her work to a journalist, who told her story to NPR. Taibbi, Matt. I Can't Breathe: A Killing on Bay Street. Books on Tape. ISBN 9780735288157. Read by Dominic Hoffman. On July 17, 2014, a43-year-old black man named Eric Garner died on a Staten Island sidewalk after a police officer put him in what has been described as an illegal chokehold during an arrest for selling bootleg cigarettes. The final moments of Garner’s life were captured on video and seen by millions. His agonized last words, “I can’t breathe,” became a rallying cry for the nascent Black Lives Matter protest movement. A grand jury ultimately declined to indict the officer who wrestled Garner to the pavement. Taibbi’s deeply reported retelling of these events liberates Eric Garner from the abstractions of newspaper accounts and lets us see the man in full—with all his flaws and contradictions intact. Telfer, Tori. Lady Killers: Deadly Women Throughout History. Dreamscape. ISBN 9781520081618. Read by Sarah Mollo-Christensen. When you think of serial killers throughout history, the names that come to mind are likely Jack the Ripper, John Wayne Gacy, and Ted Bundy. But what about Tillie Klimek, Moulay Hassan, and Kate Bender? Although largely forgotten by history, female serial killers rival their male counterparts in cunning, cruelty, and appetite. Each chapter explores the crimes and history of a different female serial killer and then proceeds to unpack her legacy and her portrayal in the media as well as the stereotypes and sexist cliches that inevitably surround her. Tucker, Reed. Slugfest: Inside the Epic 50-Year Battle Between Marvel and DC. Blackstone. ISBN 9781478997405. Reader TBA. The most bruising battle in the superhero world isn’t between spandex-clad characters; it’s between the publishers themselves. For more than 50 years, Marvel and DC have been locked in an epic war, tirelessly trading punches and trying to do to each other what Batman regularly does to the Joker’s face. This is the story of the greatest corporate rivalry never told. It is also an alternate history of the superhero, told through the lens of these two publishers.