21st Century

The Greatest Trade Ever: How John Paulson Defied Wall Street and Made Financial History

• UNABRIDGED (11 hrs and 39 mins)
• By Gregory Zuckerman
• Narrated By Marc Cashman
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In 2006, hedge fund manager John Paulson realized something few others suspected--that the housing market and the value of subprime mortgages were grossly inflated and headed for a major fall. Paulson's background was in mergers and acquisitions, however, and he knew little about real estate or how to wager against housing. He had spent a career as an also-ran on Wall Street. But Paulson was convinced this was his chance to make his mark. He just wasn't sure how to do it....

The Outpost: An Untold Story of American Valor

• UNABRIDGED (22 hrs and 21 mins)
• By Jake Tapper
• Narrated By Rob Shapiro
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At 6:00 a.m. on the morning of October 3, 2009, Combat Outpost Keating was viciously attacked by Taliban insurgents. The 53 U.S. troops, having been stationed at the bottom of three steep mountains, were severely outmanned by nearly 400 Taliban fighters. Though the Americans ultimately prevailed, their casualties made it one of the war's deadliest battles for U.S. forces. And after more than three years in that dangerous and vulnerable valley a mere 14 miles from the Pakistan border, the U.S. abandoned and bombed the camp.

The War for Late Night

• UNABRIDGED (15 hrs and 2 mins)
• By Bill Carter
• Narrated By Sean Kenin
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When NBC decided to move Jay Leno into prime time to make room for Conan O'Brien to host the Tonight show - a job he had been promised five years earlier - skeptics anticipated a train wreck for the ages. It took, in fact, only a few months for the dire predictions to come true. Leno's show, panned by critics, dragged down the ratings - and the profits - of NBC's affiliates, while ratings for Conan's new Tonight show plummeted to the lowest levels in history.

End This Depression Now!

• UNABRIDGED (8 hrs and 4 mins)
• By Paul Krugman
• Narrated By Rob Shapiro, Paul Krugman
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The Great Recession that began in 2007 is now more than four years old - and counting. Some 24 million Americans are unemployed or underemployed, and at recent rates of job creation we won’t be back to normal levels of employment until late this decade. This is a tragedy. Do we have to accept it? "No!" is the resounding answer given by Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman in this call to arms. We have seen this situation before and we know how to fix it; all we lack is the political will to take action.

Manhunt: The Ten-Year Search for Bin Laden - from 9-11 to Abbottabad

• UNABRIDGED (8 hrs and 42 mins)
• By Peter L. Bergen
• Narrated By Mark Deakins

From the author of the New York Times best-selling Holy War, Inc., this is the definitive account of the decade-long manhunt for the world’s most wanted man, Osama bin Laden. Al Qaeda expert and CNN national security analyst Peter Bergen paints a multidimensional picture of the hunt for bin Laden over the past decade, including the operation that killed him.

The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How The War on Terror Turned into a War on American Ideals

• UNABRIDGED (16 hrs and 47 mins)
• By Jane Mayer
• Narrated By Richard McGonagle
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The Dark Side is a narrative account of the decisions the U.S. made after September 11, decisions that not only violated the Constitution, but also hampered the pursuit of Al Qaeda. In gripping detail, Jane Mayer relates specific cases, shown in real time against the larger tableau of Washington, looking at the intelligence gained and the price paid. In all cases, there were incalculable losses in terms of moral standing, our country's place in the world, and its sense of itself.

Humboldt: Life on America's Marijuana Frontier

• UNABRIDGED (7 hrs and 29 mins)
• By Emily Brady
• Narrated By Dan Woren, Sonny Warner, Erin Bennett, and others
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Humboldt is a narrative exploration of an insular community in Northern California, which for nearly 40 years has existed primarily on the cultivation and sale of marijuana. Emily Brady spent a year living with the highly secretive residents of Humboldt County, and her cast of eccentric, intimately drawn characters take us into a fascinating, alternate universe. It's the story of a small town that became dependent on a forbidden plant, and of how everything is changing as marijuana goes mainstream.

None Braver: U.S. Air Force Pararescuemen in the War on Terrorism

• UNABRIDGED (12 hrs and 8 mins)
• By Michael Hirsh
• Narrated By Corey Snow
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From award-winning journalist and combat veteran Michael Hirsh comes the thrilling inside story of the Air Force's pararescue operations in Afghanistan. The first journalist to be embedded with an Air Force combat unit in the war on terrorism, Hirsh flew from Moody Air Force Base, Georgia, with the 71st Rescue Squadron to their expeditionary headquarters at a secret location in Central Asia. Unparalleled access to the pararescue jumpers - or PJs - as well as to the courageous men and women who fly them where they have to go, often under enemy fire, allowed Michael Hirsh to uncover incredible stories of courage.

The Center Holds: Obama and His Enemies

• UNABRIDGED (18 hrs and 45 mins)
• By Jonathan Alter
• Narrated By Jonathan Alter
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In The Center Holds: Obama and His Enemies, Jonathan Alter uses his unmatched access and deep knowledge of politics and history to produce the first full account of America at the crossroads. He pierces the bubble of the White House and of the presidential campaigns with exclusive reporting and rare historical insight. More than a campaign book, this is the epic story of an embattled president facing a historic moment he considered more pivotal than 2008.

The Roberts Court: The Struggle for the Constitution

• UNABRIDGED (12 hrs and 53 mins)
• By Marcia Coyle
• Narrated By Bernadette Dunne
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Seven minutes after President Obama put his signature to a landmark national health care insurance program, a lawyer in the office of Florida GOP attorney general Bill McCollum hit a computer key, sparking a legal challenge to the new law that would eventually reach the nation’s highest court. Health care is only the most visible and recent front in a battle over the meaning and scope of the U.S. Constitution. The battleground is the Supreme Court, and one of the most skilled, insightful, and trenchant of its observers takes us close up to watch it in action.

The Price of the Ticket: Barack Obama and Rise and Decline of Black Politics 

• UNABRIDGED (7 hrs and 5 mins)
• By Fredrick Harris
• Narrated By Mary Kane

The historical significance of Barack Obama's triumph in the presidential election of 2008 scarcely requires comment. Yet it contains an irony: He won a victory as an African American only by denying that he was the candidate of African Americans. Obama's very success, writes Fredrick Harris, exacted a heavy cost on black politics.

In The Price of the Ticket, Harris puts Obama's career in the context of decades of black activism, showing how his election undermined the very movement that made it possible.

Dirty Wars: The World Is a Battlefield

• UNABRIDGED (24 hrs and 8 mins)
• By Jeremy Scahill
• Narrated By Tom Weiner
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From Afghanistan and Pakistan to Yemen, Somalia, and beyond, Scahill speaks to the CIA agents, mercenaries, and elite Special Operations Forces operators who populate the dark side of American war-fighting. He goes deep into al Qaeda-held territory in Yemen and walks the streets of Mogadishu with CIA-backed warlords. We also meet the survivors of US night raids and drone strikes - including families of US citizens targeted for assassination by their own government - who reveal the human consequences of the dirty wars the United States struggles to keep hidden.