The author deftly defines four Americas: Free America (independent, "don't tread on me"); Real America (Christian nationalist, anti-expertise); Smart America (winners in the meritocracy); Just America (equality overall). He takes on all four while narrating with precision, passion, and empathy, letting the stories and quotations speak for themselves. He delivers this pithy audiobook at a good pace, and the force of his convictions comes through. His historic north stars, Alexis de Tocqueville and Walt Whitman, provide context for his ongoing project of understanding the fractures in our democracy. This provocative audiobook is at its best in its finely crafted profiles of editor/publisher Horace Greeley, labor advocate Frances Perkins, and civil rights activist Bayard Rustin. Packer's evaluation of the state of contemporary journalism is compelling.
Pub Date: June 15, 2021
Duration: 6 hrs, 45 mins
DD ISBN: 9781250816122
Publisher: Macmillan Audio
Review Posted Online: Jan. 22, 2026
Kozol’s shocking exposé of inequities in the funding of our public schools contrasts white suburban schools with those serving black and Hispanic populations. Interviews with students, teachers, and school administrators add eloquent testimony to Kozol’s disturbing presentation of facts. Narration by Jack Winston is clear and brisk, but the pace is unrelenting, with little pause for transition between scenes or chapters. Winston’s cool, detached voice contrasts with Kozol’s impasssioned and outraged message. The sheer repetition and magnitude of Kozol’s damning evidence is numbing; the narration gives no relief. Powerful medicine, most easily taken in small doses. Music signalling tape changes is jarringly inappropriate.
Pub Date: N/A
Duration: 8 hrs
Publisher: Brilliance Audio
Review Posted Online: Jan. 22, 2026
While author Zengerle provides a workmanlike reading of the lengthy prologue, Beth Hicks successfully presents an engaging, straightforward, and unadorned narration of the balance. Zengerle, a New York Times Magazine writer, presents a well-researched, if highly-opinionated, examination of the life and evolution of conservative pundit Tucker Carlson. Zengerle also examines the polarization of media covering American politics online and on cable networks, such as CNN and Fox News. Despite the author's sharply critical and, at times, angry rhetoric, Hicks manages to offer a calm and nuanced narration. Hicks delivers on this treatise profiling the American body politics' radicalization and extreme polarity in both the process itself and its coverage reporting.
Pub Date: Jan. 27, 2026
Duration: 9 hrs
DD ISBN: 9798217296149
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: Jan. 22, 2026
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