"In this taut, chilling novel, Lester Ballard--a violent, dispossessed man falsely accused of rape--haunts the hill country of East Tennessee when he is released from jail. While telling his story, Cormac McCarthy depicts the most sordid aspects of life with dignity, humor, and characteristic lyrical brilliance."
Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth I (Part 1 of 2) by Lucy Aikin audiobook
"First published in 1818 and subsequently reprinted, Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth focuses on the art, literature, manners and morals of the period, with brief biographies of important individuals. Drawing on published sources rather than archival material, it is a clear and readable narrative that reveals the author's critical insight."
Hunted by James Patterson audiobook
"Someone is luring men from the streets to play a mysterious, high stakes game in the English countryside. Former Special Forces officer David Shelley will go undercover to take them down--but this might be a game he can't win."
Night of the Wolf radio play
"Starring Vincent Price as a 19th-century judge who encounters deadly family secrets while searching for his son in the Cambridge Fenlands. Written by Victor Pemberton and produced by John Tydeman, it also starred Coral Browne (Vincent's third wife) and was first broadcast on BBC Radio 4's Saturday Night Theatre in 1975."
The Murders in the Rue Morgue by Edgar Allan Poe audiobook
"Poe's amateur detective, C. Auguste Dupin, takes an interest in the murder in Paris of two women. It was terribly brutal but difficult to categorize; there appeared to be no robbery or sexual assault, no obvious reason for the crimes. The newspapers carried sensational headlines. Dupin gets involved because the man arrested for the crimes, Monsieur Le Bon, had previously done him a favour. It becomes a challenge to Dupin."
( starts 00:08:37 )
Stream of two radio plays:
Pontypool - "A radio host interprets the possible outbreak of a deadly virus which infects the small Ontario town he is stationed in."
Arsenic and Old Lace - "The play is a farcical black comedy revolving around the Brewster family, descended from the Mayflower settlers but now composed of maniacs."
(sorry for the occasional flickering of the background on the second play. Didn't realize until the stream had started)
Edison's Ghosts: The Untold Weirdness of History’s Greatest Geniuses by Katie Spalding audiobook
"Overturn everything you knew about history’s greatest minds in this raucous and hilarious book, where it turns out there's a finer line between "genius" and "idiot" than we've previously known. “As Albert Einstein almost certainly never said, everyone is a genius – but if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.” So begins Katie Spalding’s spunky takedown of the Western canon, and how genius may not be as irrefutably great as we commonly understand. While most of us may never become Einstein, it may surprise you to learn that there’s probably a bunch of stuff you can do that Einstein couldn’t. And, as Spalding shows, the famous prodigies she explores here were quite odd by any definition."
"Edison's Ghosts is filled with examples of the so-called best of humanity doing, to put it bluntly, some really dumb shit. You’ll discover stories that deserve to be told but never the hilarious, regrettable, and downright bafflingly lesser-known achievements that never made it into our history books, until now."
Thank God for Bitcoin: The Creation, Corruption and Redemption of Money by Jimmy Song and others (Bitcoin and Bible Group) audiobook
"Money is a fact of everyday life. We earn it, spend it and save it. We’re tempted to worship it and to trust it to provide for our needs. While much has been written about the power, danger, and stewardship of money, little has been written about what money actually is and whether or not money itself is moral. That information gap has been exploited to enrich a privileged few, enslave millions, and reap confusion and division throughout the world. How did this happen and what can we do about it?"
"Thank God for Bitcoin explores the ways in which the current monetary system is broken and what can be done to fix it. It explores the creation of money, its corruption and its potential redemption. It looks at how Bitcoin is redeeming the ills of our corrupt monetary system and how the ongoing transition to sound money is a source of hope for a broken world."
Flight 149: A Hostage Crisis, a Secret Special Forces Unit, and the Origins of the Gulf War by Stephen Davis audiobook
"On Wednesday August 1st, 1990, British Airways flight 149 was on a seemingly routine journey that turned into a month-long international hostage crisis in a war-torn country. As sson as it set down on the Kuwaiti tarmac just as Saddam Hussein and his Iraqi forces invaded, BA149 became an unexpected casualty of a desert war. Or that’s how the story went, until now."
"In Flight 149, award-winning investigative journalist Stephen Davis tells a revelatory story, the product of thirty years of dogged investigation that was finally confirmed by a conscience-stricken former MI6 officer. The British and American governments gambled with the lives of passengers on board, in what marked the beginning of a new era of Western entanglement in the Middle East, one that would ensnare the UK and US to this day. As Davis reveals, BA149 was used to smuggle in a covert special operatives unit tasked with gathering intelligence. But once Iraqi forces intercepted the plane on the tarmac and took passengers hostage, their lives were upended forever."
"Paced like a true thriller, Flight 149 revisits the First Gulf War and pivotal event of Western hubris. With first-hand testimony from passengers, new insights from covert sources and confessions from secret soldiers, Davis unravels the web of lies and deceit put forth by the US and British government while portraying the lasting consequences of the ill-fated flight."