Written by: James Watson with Andrew Berry A history of the science of genetics from the man who got famous for ‘discovering’ DNA. Interesting stories that I think I remember or that might be from high school. Length: 17.75 hrs 1/2004: What he said.
Written by: Bill Bryson In a nutshell: “First the Earth cooled. Then the dinosaurs came but they got too big and fat and died and turned into oil. Ooh look! There’s a sale at Penney’s!” Actually that’s from Airplane, which was a whole lot funnier than this book. Length: 18 hrs 11/2003: I like Bill […]
Written by: Al Franken You know how someone tells you something and then recommends an action based on that thing? And that action kind of makes sense based on what they told you? Except that the thing they told you was a total lie? Turns out a bunch of jerks in government and on the […]
Written by: Gore Vidal A “semi-fictionalized” history of the United States from 1939-1954, focusing primarily on American politics and Franklin Roosevelt. While not entirely true, it does give a sufficiently accurate enough portrayal of the events of the time and how people thought about them so as to be useful in understanding the flavor of […]
Written by: Eric Schlosser A look into 3 underground economies – marijuana, porn, and migrant farm workers. The contradictions and injustices revealed are both amazing and upsetting. Similar to “Fast Food Nation” though, the listener is left with a “Yeah, that’s pretty fucked up” without any clear notion of what to do about it. So […]
Written by: Eric Schlosser This is a well-reasoned book that while drawing out strong emotions, is primarily factual and lets listeners reach their own conclusions about the fast food industry. It isn’t “evil” corporations abusing the poor, it’s just people doing their thing and unfortunately at certain scales things just get nasty. The food safety […]
Written by: Mark Kurlansky This book is almost 14 hours long and is all about the history of salt. How awesome is that? Although crazy long, it was actually really interesting and there really is a pretty amazing story to be told. For basically ever prior to refrigeration, which is actually super new relatively, the […]
Written by: Bob Woodward I can’t believe we had this idiot for a president, and I can’t believe Bob Woodward sucks so bad now. I expected a hard-hitting, investigative piece where I would learn something about the ‘inner circle’, but it was no better than a crappy news report. Actually it was a lot worse, […]
Written by: Edmund Morris Holy crap Theodore Roosevelt is a total badass. He started as a sickly child, but decided instead he would be awesome and made it happen. Great stories like when he was District Attorney and his way for getting rid of the stupid Blue Laws in New York was to prosecute the […]
Written by: Cyril Robinson This is what happens when two little kids are raised by wolves next to a big river. Basically they build a bunch of cool shit out of rocks, but later turn into Nazis, and then an evil space empire. It’s definitely a good listen, but you can also just watch the […]
whispered words from literary masters, cheesy hacks, inspirational gurus, and fluffy crap artists into my ears. These are there stories.