Cassandra Campbell is a talented narrator and an ideal choice for this combination of science history and personal memoir. The author, a renowned planetary scientist and NASA veteran, describes the history of Mars observation from the time it was a mere a red dot in the sky through the period of spacecraft exploration. Campbell's friendly voice moves from supposition to discovery as fiction is enlightened by fact, covering her childhood fascination and adult quests, technical terms and remote locales. The audiobook is not limited to Mars. Johnson has been all over our own planet on scientific expeditions. She also describes snippets of her personal life, including marrying and beginning a family. This is, in part, a portrait of human minds trying to find patterns in chaos. Once we saw canals, for example; later they weren't there. A very human story with a first-class narrator at the helm.
Pub Date: 2020
Duration: 8 hrs
DD ISBN: 9780593210284
Publisher: Random House Audio
Review Posted Online: Jan. 22, 2026
Randall's audiobook recounts the challenges six women bore in order to make an ascent of Denali in Alaska more than 50 years ago. The "Denali Damsels" encountered misogyny at every turn, as well as the extreme elements. Narrator Amanda Dolan guides the story with the right inflections of emotion, which are important since the women had very different personalities. Frustration and impatience, more than anything else, bubbled up along the climb, and Dolan imparts them in snappish tones. She reflects the story, the characters, and the tribulations the women endured as they braved the harsh conditions while tackling the mountain.
Pub Date: 2025
Duration: 9 hrs, 30 mins
DD ISBN: 9798895948880
Publisher: Recorded Books Inc.
Review Posted Online: Jan. 22, 2026
As an audiobook author, historian Matthew Restall is spirited, witty, highly informed, and full of insights and revelations. As a narrator, he's more subdued, even a bit flat. But no matter. Restall's steady, evenhanded narration reenforces the balance and objectivity of his history of the "nine lives of Christopher Columbus." Over five centuries, Columbus has been hailed and reviled, a discoverer and a destroyer, one century symbolized as Columbia and paired with Washington on statuary, the next denounced for perpetuating the Spanish devastation of the New World. Restall's restraint keeps the focus on the historical processes at work, and on his richly layered portrait of Columbus. History is fluid, it seems, and malleable--something this well-researched, well-told history demonstrates.
Pub Date: 2025
Duration: 11 hrs, 45 mins
DD ISBN: 9798318519789
Publisher: Tantor Media
Review Posted Online: Jan. 22, 2026
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