HearingBooks

BUY DIGITAL BUY PHYSICAL

"The Iraq Study Group Report" by The Iraq Study Group Length: 3 hours and 9 min. ISBN: New York Times Best Seller Listen to an excerpt with:     Windows Media Player     Real Player

After nine months of examining and analyzing U.S. military involvement in Iraq, the bi-partisan Iraq Study Group issued this report on Dec. 6, 2006.

The report calls the situation in Iraq “grave and deteriorating” and says, “There is no path that can guarantee success, but the prospects can be improved”. The report makes a wide-ranging series of 79 recommendations for political, diplomatic, economic, and military action so the U.S. can “begin to move its combat forces” out of Iraq.

The co-chairs of the Iraq Study Group were James A. Baker III, who served Pres. Reagan as Secretary of the Treasury and White House Chief of Staff, and Pres. George H.W. Bush as Secretary of State; and former Rep. Lee Hamilton, a Democrat who served in Congress for 34 years.

Democratic members of the Study Group included former Secretary of Defense William Perry; former Governor and Senator Charles S. Robb; former Congressman and White House Chief of Staff Leon Panetta; and Vernon E. Jordan, Jr., advisor to Pres. Clinton. Republican members included former Associate Justice to the U.S. Supreme Court Sandra Day O’Connor; former Sen. Alan K. Simpson; former Attorney General Edwin Meese III; and former Secretary of State Lawrence S. Eagleburger. (Former CIA Director Robert Gates was an active member for a period of months until his nomination as Secretary of Defense.)

Four organizations participated in preparing the report: United States Institute of Peace; James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy, Rice University; Center for the Study of the Presidency; and Center for Strategic and International Studies.

We want to hear your opinion about The Iraq Study Group Report; call 1-888-824-3739 or 1-212-784-6817 and leave us a message. Your thoughts, representing all viewpoints and all parts of the world, will be compiled into a “listener’s voices” audio report.

Tags: the iraq study group report, the iraq study group, audibleoriginals, nonfiction, iraq report, george bush, president george w. bush, war, military, james baker, lee hamilton, bi-partisan

BUY DIGITAL BUY PHYSICAL

"Stumbling on Happiness" by Daniel Gilbert Length: 7 hours and 26 min. ISBN: 0-7393-3222-8 New York Times Best Seller Listen to an excerpt with:     Windows Media Player     Real Player

A smart and funny book by a prominent Harvard psychologist, which uses groundbreaking research and (often hilarious) anecdotes to show us why we’re so lousy at predicting what will make us happy, and what we can do about it.

Most of us spend our lives steering ourselves toward the best of all possible futures, only to find that tomorrow rarely turns out as we had expected. Why? As Harvard psychologist Daniel Gilbert explains, when people try to imagine what the future will hold, they make some basic and consistent mistakes. Just as memory plays tricks on us when we try to look backward in time, so does imagination play tricks when we try to look forward.

Using cutting-edge research, much of it original, Gilbert shakes, cajoles, persuades, tricks, and jokes us into accepting the fact that happiness is not really what or where we thought it was. Among the unexpected questions he poses: Why are conjoined twins no less happy than the general population? When you go out to eat, is it better to order your favorite dish every time, or to try something new? If Ingrid Bergman hadn’t gotten on the plane at the end of Casablanca, would she and Bogey have been better off?

Tags: stumbling on happiness, daniel gilbert, nonfiction, science & technology, self development, philosophy, science, neuroscience, happy

In the tradition of Bertrand Russell’s Why I Am Not a Christian and Sam Harris’ recent best-seller, The End of Faith, Christopher Hitchens makes the ultimate case against religion. With a close and erudite reading of the major religious texts, he documents the ways in which religion is a man-made wish, a cause of dangerous sexual repression, and a distortion of our origins in the cosmos. With eloquent clarity, Hitchens frames the argument for a more secular life based on science and reason, in which hell is replaced by the Hubble Telescope’s view of the universe, and Moses and the burning bush give way to the beauty of the double helix.

Tags: god is not great: how religion poisons everything, christopher hitchens, nonfiction, religion, atheism

BUY DIGITAL BUY PHYSICAL

"On Bullshit" by Harry G. Frankfurt Length: 1 hour ISBN: 1-4193-4887-6 New York Times Best Seller Listen to an excerpt with:     Windows Media Player     Real Player

One of the most salient features of our culture is that there is so much bulls**t. Everyone knows this. Each of us contributes his share. But we tend to take the situation for granted. Most people are rather confident of their ability to recognize bulls**t and to avoid being taken in by it. So the phenomenon has not aroused much deliberate concern. We have no clear understanding of what bulls**t is, why there is so much of it, or what functions it serves. And we lack a conscientiously developed appreciation of what it means to us. In other words, as Harry Frankfurt writes, “we have no theory”.

Frankfurt, one of the world’s most influential moral philosophers, attempts to build such a theory here. With his characteristic combination of philosophical acuity, psychological insight, and wry humor, Frankfurt proceeds by exploring how bulls**t and the related concept of humbug are distinct from lying. He argues that bulls**tters misrepresent themselves to their audience not as liars do, that is, by deliberately making false claims about what is true. In fact, bulls**t need not be untrue at all.

Rather, bulls**tters seek to convey a certain impression of themselves without being concerned about whether anything at all is true. They quietly change the rules governing their end of the conversation so that claims about truth and falsity are irrelevant. Frankfurt concludes that although bulls**t can take many innocent forms, excessive indulgence in it can eventually undermine the practitioner’s capacity to tell the truth in a way that lying does not. Liars at least acknowledge that it matters what is true. By virtue of this, Frankfurt writes, bulls**t is a greater enemy of the truth than lies are.

Tags: on bullshit, harry g. frankfurt, nonfiction, theory, moral philosophy, lying, truth, bullshit

BUY DIGITAL BUY PHYSICAL

"The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century, Updated and Expa" by Thomas L. Friedman Length: 24 hours and 11 min. ISBN: 1-4272-0015-7 New York Times Best Seller Listen to an excerpt with:     Windows Media Player     Real Player

“One mark of a great book is that it makes you see things in a new way, and Mr. Friedman certainly succeeds in that goal,” the Nobel laureate Joseph E. Stiglitz wrote in The New York Times, reviewing The World is Flat in 2005.

With his inimitable ability to translate complex foreign policy and economic issues, Friedman brilliantly demystifies the new flat world for listeners, allowing them to make sense of the advances in technology and communications that are creating an explosion of wealth in India and China, and challenging the rest of us to run even faster just to stay in place. For this updated and expanded edition, Friedman has provided more than five hours of new reporting and commentary, bringing fresh stories and insights to help us understand the flattening of the world. New material includes:

• Longitudes And Attitudes
• The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the 21st Century
• The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the 21st Century
• The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century, Updated and Expa