Ray Porter's straightforward presentation highlights Schaller and Waldman's observations on why white voters in rural America have been won over by candidates whose political actions oppose the voters' best interests. The authors detail ways that our system gives an inordinate advantage to these rural voters, who are vastly smaller in number than their urban counterparts. Porter speaks clearly and forcefully when delivering descriptions of racist, homophobic, and xenophobic attitudes affecting voting patterns in white rural America. The audiobook is filled with empirical data citing many polls and studies, which slow down the narration. Porter picks up the pace when conveying the authors' distaste for the rampant adherence to conspiracy theories in rural areas. A frightening exposition of a flawed electoral system.
Pub Date: Feb. 27, 2024
Duration: 11 hrs
DD ISBN: 9780593910788
Publisher: Random House 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
This highly informative history of prehistory tells a new story of how Homo sapiens settled down and started civilizing.
This is historian and popular podcaster Wyman’s second audiobook, after The Verge (2021), which spanned the years 1490-1530 during the European Renaissance. Here his focus is 10,000 years earlier, at the end of the Ice Age, and the spread of what could now be called humans. The story of how, all over the globe, they gave up the migratory life, settled, and started building is wonderfully, richly told in this outstanding history. Wyman doesn’t have the smoothest or most melodic of voices, but he easily wins over the ear and the imagination with his solid research and his adept storytelling.
This highly informative history of prehistory tells a new story of how Homo sapiens settled down and started civilizing.Pub Date: May 5, 2026
Duration: 14 hrs, 55 mins
DD ISBN: 9780063256514
Publisher: Harper Audio
Review Posted Online: June 9, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: yesterday
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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