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Thunderstruck
- Narrated by: Bob Balaban
- Length: 11 hrs and 56 mins
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Publisher's summary
Set in Edwardian London and on the stormy coasts of Cornwall, Cape Cod, and Nova Scotia, Thunderstruck evokes the dynamism of those years when great shipping companies competed to build the biggest, fastest ocean liners; scientific advances dazzled the public with visions of a world transformed; and the rich outdid one another with ostentatious displays of wealth. Against this background, Marconi races against incredible odds and relentless skepticism to perfect his invention: the wireless, a prime catalyst for the emergence of the world we know today. Meanwhile, Crippen, "the kindest of men", nearly commits the perfect crime.
With his superb narrative skills, Erik Larson guides these parallel narratives toward a relentlessly suspenseful meeting on the waters of the North Atlantic. Along the way, he tells of a sad and tragic love affair that was described on the front pages of newspapers around the world, a chief inspector who found himself strangely sympathetic to the killer and his lover, and a driven and compelling inventor who transformed the way we communicate.
Thunderstruck presents a vibrant portrait of an era of séances, science, and fog, inhabited by inventors, magicians, and Scotland Yard detectives, all presided over by the amiable and fun-loving Edward VII as the world slid inevitably toward the first great war of the 20th century.
Gripping from the start, and rich with fascinating detail about the time, the people, and the new inventions that connect and divide us, Thunderstruck is splendid narrative history from a master of the form.
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The Path Between the Seas tells the story of the men and women who fought against all odds to fulfill the 400-year-old dream of constructing an aquatic passageway between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. It is a story of astonishing engineering feats, tremendous medical accomplishments, political power plays, heroic successes, and tragic failures. McCullough expertly weaves the many strands of this momentous event into a captivating tale.
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No Stone Unturned
- By Tim on 06-25-13
By: David McCullough
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Jack London
- An American Life
- By: Earle Labor
- Narrated by: Michael Prichard
- Length: 16 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Jack London was born a working class, fatherless Californian in 1876. In his youth, he was a boundlessly energetic adventurer on the bustling West Coast - an oyster pirate, a hobo, a sailor, and a prospector by turns. He spent his brief life rapidly accumulating the experiences that would inform his acclaimed best-selling books The Call of the Wild, White Fang, and The Sea-Wolf.
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Glad I chose this
- By SherryH on 04-14-19
By: Earle Labor
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Gilded Lives, Fatal Voyage
- The Titanic's First-Class Passengers and Their World
- By: Hugh Brewster
- Narrated by: Paul Boehmer
- Length: 10 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
The Titanic has often been called "An exquisite microcosm of the Edwardian era", but until now, her story has not been presented as such. In Gilded Lives, Fatal Voyage, historian Hugh Brewster seamlessly interweaves personal narratives of the lost liner's most fascinating people with a haunting account of the fateful maiden crossing. Employing scrupulous research, he accurately depicts the ship's brief life and tragic denouement and presents compelling, memorable portraits of her most notable passengers.
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Lots of interesting details
- By Rachel on 10-16-18
By: Hugh Brewster
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Chief Engineer
- Washington Roebling, the Man Who Built the Brooklyn Bridge
- By: Erica Wagner
- Narrated by: Jo Anna Perrin
- Length: 14 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
His father conceived of the Brooklyn Bridge, but after John Roebling's sudden death, Washington Roebling built what has become one of American's most iconic structures - as much a part of New York as the Statue of Liberty or the Empire State Building. Yet, as recognizable as the bridge is, its builder is too often forgotten - and his life is of interest far beyond his chosen field. It is the story of immigrants, of the frontier, of the greatest crisis in American history, and of the making of the modern world.
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Monumental
- By charles mueller on 07-09-19
By: Erica Wagner
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The Italian Secretary
- By: Caleb Carr
- Narrated by: Simon Prebble
- Length: 6 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
The best-selling author of the Alienist series returns with a chilling elaboration on the Sherlock Holmes canon, as the famed detective investigates a pair of gruesome murders, which cast an otherworldly shadow as far as Queen Victoria herself.
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A True Delight for the Holmes Enthusiast
- By Sagar on 06-03-05
By: Caleb Carr
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The Wright Brothers
- By: David McCullough
- Narrated by: David McCullough
- Length: 10 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Two-time winner of the Pulitzer Prize David McCullough tells the dramatic story behind the story about the courageous brothers who taught the world how to fly: Wilbur and Orville Wright.
On December 17, 1903, at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, Wilbur and Orville Wright's Wright Flyer became the first powered, heavier-than-air machine to achieve controlled, sustained flight with a pilot aboard. The Age of Flight had begun. How did they do it? And why?
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Disappointing
- By Sara on 07-10-16
By: David McCullough
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The Colony
- The Harrowing True Story of the Exiles on Molokai
- By: John Tayman
- Narrated by: Patrick Lawlor
- Length: 15 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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In 1866, 12 men and women and one small child were forced aboard a leaky schooner and cast away to a natural prison on the Hawaiian island of Molokai. Two weeks later, a dozen others were exiled, and then 40 more, and then 100 more. Tracked by bounty hunters and torn screaming from their families, the luckless were loaded into shipboard cattle stalls and abandoned in a lawless place where brutality held sway. Many did not have leprosy, and most of those who did were not contagious.
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Interesting
- By Matt on 10-31-06
By: John Tayman
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Voyage of the Damned
- A Shocking True Story of Hope, Betrayal, and Nazi Terror
- By: Max Morgan Witts, Gordon Thomas
- Narrated by: Chris Kayser
- Length: 10 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
This book is a meticulous reconstruction of a tragic episode in the history of the Nazi persecution of the Jews. The SS. St. Louis left Hamburg in May of 1939 with 937 Jewish refugees on board who thought they had bought visas to enter Cuba. Refused entry in Cuba and the United States the ship eventually had to turn around and return to Europe. The voyage to freedom was in the end nothing more than a roundabout journey to the concentration camps.
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No propaganda more damning than the truth
- By Buretto on 10-29-20
By: Max Morgan Witts, and others
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The Witch of Lime Street
- Séance, Seduction, and Houdini in the Spirit World
- By: David Jaher
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 14 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
The 1920s are famous as the golden age of jazz and glamour, but it was also an era of fevered yearning for communion with the spirit world, after the loss of tens of millions in the First World War and the Spanish-flu epidemic. A desperate search for reunion with dead loved ones precipitated a tidal wave of self-proclaimed psychics - and, as reputable media sought stories on occult phenomena, mediums became celebrities.
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Houdini, Conan Doyle and Marjorie
- By Blue Dragonfly on 10-11-15
By: David Jaher
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Mark Twain
- A Life
- By: Ron Powers
- Narrated by: Ron Powers
- Length: 10 hrs and 54 mins
- Abridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Mark Twain founded the American voice. His works are a living national treasury: taught, quoted, and reprinted more than those of any writer except Shakespeare. His awestruck contemporaries saw him as the representative figure of his times, and his influence has deeply flavored the 20th and 21st centuries.
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Buy the Book
- By W.Denis on 10-22-05
By: Ron Powers
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The Woman Who Smashed Codes
- A True Story of Love, Spies, and the Unlikely Heroine who Outwitted America's Enemies
- By: Jason Fagone
- Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell
- Length: 13 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
In 1912, at the height of World War I, brilliant Shakespeare expert Elizebeth Smith went to work for an eccentric tycoon on his estate outside Chicago. The tycoon had close ties to the US government, and he soon asked Elizebeth to apply her language skills to an exciting new venture: code breaking. There she met the man who would become her husband, groundbreaking cryptologist William Friedman. Though she and Friedman are in many ways the Adam and Eve of the NSA, Elizebeth's story, incredibly, has never been told.
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Captivating Biography
- By Jean on 11-20-17
By: Jason Fagone
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50 Children
- One Ordinary American Couple's Extraordinary Rescue Mission into the Heart of Nazi Germany
- By: Steven Pressman
- Narrated by: Robert Fass
- Length: 8 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
In early 1939, few Americans were thinking about the darkening storm clouds over Europe. Nor did they have much sympathy for the growing number of Jewish families that were increasingly threatened and brutalized by Adolf Hitler's policies in Germany and Austria. But one ordinary American couple decided that something had to be done. Despite overwhelming obstacles - both in Europe and in the United States - Gilbert and Eleanor Kraus made a bold and unprecedented decision to travel into Nazi Germany in an effort to save a group of Jewish children.
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I didn't want it to end
- By David Shear on 05-07-14
By: Steven Pressman
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Labyrinths
- Emma Jung, Her Marriage to Carl, and the Early Years of Psychoanalysis
- By: Catrine Clay
- Narrated by: Karen Cass
- Length: 11 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Clever and ambitious, Emma Jung yearned to study the natural sciences at the University of Zurich. But the strict rules of proper Swiss society at the beginning of the 20th century dictated that a woman of Emma's stature - one of the richest heiresses in Switzerland - travel to Paris to "finish" her education, to prepare for marriage to a suitable man. Engaged to the son of one of her father's wealthy business colleagues, Emma's conventional and predictable life was upended when she met Carl Jung.
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Carl plays center stage
- By Sparrowhawk on 12-23-16
By: Catrine Clay
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Thirty-six of the most interesting writers in the Pacific Northwest came together for a week-long marathon of writing live on stage. The result? Hotel Angeline, a truly inventive novel that surprises at every turn of the page. Something is amiss at the Hotel Angeline, a rickety former mortuary perched atop Capitol Hill in rain-soaked Seattle. Fourteen-year-old Alexis Austin is fixing the plumbing, the tea, and all the problems of the world, it seems, in her landlady mother’s absence.
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Raised in genteel poverty after the First World War, Maria Magdalena Dietrich dreams of a life on the stage. When a budding career as a violinist is cut short, the willful teenager vows to become a singer, trading her family's proper middle-class society for the free-spirited, louche world of Weimar Berlin's cabarets and drag balls.
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September 29, 1913: the steamship Dresden is halfway between Belgium and England. On board is one of the most famous men in the world, Rudolf Diesel, whose new internal combustion engine is on the verge of revolutionizing global industry forever. But Diesel never arrives at his destination. He vanishes during the night and headlines around the world wonder if it was an accident, suicide, or murder.
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On January 28, 1742, a ramshackle vessel of patched-together wood and cloth washed up on the coast of Brazil. Inside were thirty emaciated men, barely alive, and they had an extraordinary tale to tell. They were survivors of His Majesty’s Ship the Wager, a British vessel that had left England in 1740 on a secret mission during an imperial war with Spain. While the Wager had been chasing a Spanish treasure-filled galleon known as “the prize of all the oceans,” it had wrecked on a desolate island off the coast of Patagonia.
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New York, 1888. Gas lamps still flicker in the city streets, but the miracle of electric light is in its infancy. The person who controls the means to turn night into day will make history - and a vast fortune. A young untested lawyer named Paul Cravath, fresh out of Columbia Law School, takes a case that seems impossible to win. Paul's client, George Westinghouse, has been sued by Thomas Edison over a billion-dollar question: Who invented the lightbulb and holds the right to power the country?
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What listeners say about Thunderstruck
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- Brian
- 06-28-15
Excellent
Larson never disappoints. A great story. Truth is stranger than fiction. Fast paced with great characters.
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- triciamor
- 12-27-17
Glitch in chapter 23
Fairly good story and interesting history. Devil in the White City was better, though. Also, there is a glitch in chapters 23 and 24 (acknowledged b the publisher) that causes you to miss an unknown amount of time. Good, but not great.
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- S. Yates
- 09-08-16
Another solid history
Any additional comments?
Another solid outing by Larson. This time, he examines Marconi and the invention/development/deployment of wireless telegraphy, and how that cutting edge technology led to the apprehension of Dr. Crippen (famous for murdering his wife). Larson, as always, has done his historical homework, and he builds the suspense by tracking both Marconi and Crippen from early adulthood to their convergence (or at least the convergence of Marconi's device and Crippen's fate) by laying out what was happening in their lives and the world. You come away feeling pity for Crippen and his poor choice of life partner, and with admiration tinged with some annoyance for Marconi, who had character flaws aplenty. An interesting look at how technology shrunk the world and a reminder that the public's breathless voyeurism is not a 21st century invention.
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- Mary
- 05-30-13
Informative & Entertaining
I always enjoy Erik Larson's way of blending historical facts and events with the seedy, sometimes gory details of true crime. While the subject matter is not as sinister as Devil in the White City, the book does not disappoint. Exploring Marconi's invention of the radio, something which we take for granted in today's world as practically passe, Larson weaves in a tale of murder which would seemingly have nothing to do with it. And yet, as ever, it all comes together in the end. A very good listen to anyone who enjoys true crime, biographies, or both.
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- Kevin S
- 06-16-18
solid but could have been better
I thoroughly enjoyed this book but the interweaving and convergence of two historical threads was less impactful here than in Devil In The White City. I do thoroughly reccomend this, but it will not be nearly as compelling.
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- John Zajaros
- 02-05-21
Another Masterwork by Larson
Erik Larson weaves seemingly coincidental events into a story that not only educates but fascinates. I’ve read several of Larson’s books, and they never disappoint.
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- Bluesky
- 11-12-22
An interesting review of historic events
The author has juxtaposed two stories which are essentially unrelated except for the time in which they occurred. However, both are interesting.
I am nonplussed by some of the comments about the narrator. I have listened to hundreds of audiobooks and no longer listen to those whose narrator does not appeal. Bob Balaban does a fine job with this book. He does not "act" it, he reads it. If some find the narration too fast, just slow the speed to 0.9x.
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- Darryl
- 01-05-07
very good
very good story, but i think the book is misconstructed in a couple of important ways and might have moved quicker. non-fiction buffs will still enjoy it i should think
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- miyaker
- 09-19-08
Excellent Book, Narration is fine
While perhaps not up to the level of Devil in the White City, I found Thunderstruck completely captivating. Just as in his previous book, both plots are very engaging. As the author admits in the prologue, sometimes the detail is just a bit over the top, but the vast majority of the time the extra bits of trivia are quite interesting.
While the narrator starts out speaking quickly at the very beginning (and only the beginning), I had no other issues with the narration. It was clear and never detracted from the story.
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- Stupid_Boy_Baker
- 06-18-19
Perfect History Story with Intrigue!
This is a NON-FICTION story. However, there is a intriguing twist that makes it a page-turner. The author apologizes for going into extreme details at times, but this engineer (by profession) feels that facet ADDS to the storyline rather than detracts.
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