The Bright List

The Playboy Aristocrat Who Turned Mayan Hieroglyphics-- and His Own Life-- Upside Down

The Road to Ruins, by Ian Graham

Ian Graham was raised a classic British aristocrat, who could’ve easily gone to seed with his wealth and playthings. Instead, he became a first-class autodidact who would, almost accidentally, change the course of archeology and anthropology.

His writing is delicious. It starts with his childhood friendship with Rudyard Kipling, and it just never stops.

University of New Mexico Press was pleased to publish Graham’s book as an anthropology classic, but they soon realized he was garnering fans who had no interest in relics at all! It’s him, this amazing man, who’s the attraction. Graham’s life is one of those “unbelievable adventures,” a road trip in a swank car that went completely off the rails—told with great humility and wit.

Narrated by the fantastic film actor John Mawson, whose voice is instantly humorous, cheeky—he could talk me into anything. (I think Audible has a untapped dating service just waiting to happen).

—Aretha Bright

Dennis Hopper's Audio Bio: Sex, Drugs, Hollywood Money, & Don't Forget the ART.

Dennis Hopper: The Wild Ride of a Hollywood Rebel, by Peter L. Winkler

This is top-notch Hollywood celeb candy with all the addictive trimmings.

I thought I knew Dennis Hopper, but the first chapter of this book left my jaw open— What an incredible childhood! He was lucky to live through it.

Hopper was “discovered” in Hollywood by falling off a log— it was so easy for him. He would just show up and get attention the minute he walked through the door.

Yes, author Winkler spares no private details. “Names are named,” he promises, and they are. You’ll learn every gruesome deal in movie industry, plus the requisite 60s-level sex and drugs. And the art. Of course, the art.

Narrated by Greg Itzin, who does Hopper a very good turn!

—Aretha Bright

Joseph Kittinger and His Legendary 19.5-Mile Fall Into Fame

Come Up and Get Me: An Autobiography of Colonel Joseph Kittinger, by Joseph Kittinger

They don't make adventurers like Joe Kittinger any more: a man whose ultimate goal was to fly around the entire globe in a balloon by himself.

Welcome to the rootin'- tootin'—and unexpectedly poignant— story of a Vietnam POW who went from ballooning to free-falling in outer space to making records every time he opened a hatch.

Kittinger was the guy that the military would use as a test pilot to see "what would happen" in extreme and emergency situations, miles above the ground.

Balls of steel? Check.

His proudest achievement is a terrifying parachute drop from 19-and-a-half miles above the earth in 1960, where he reached a speed of 614 mph.

Military history and adventure story fans will love this guy.  Kittinger is humble, funny, and someone you'd definitely want to have by your side in a tight situation! There needs to be a sequel to Snakes on a Plane—with Kittinger in a starring role.

-Aretha Bright

Note from our colleague, Chris Hall:

Kittinger's record leap from 19.5 miles in Project Excelsior still stands today.

Just this month, October 2012, a guy named Felix Baumgartner tried to break it, but aborted. He did this not only with Kittinger's blessing, but assistance. See Video and Story for more at Gizmodo and the Atlantic.

I’ll Do My Own Damn Killin’ -- The Bloody History of the Texas Gambling War

 

I’ll Do My Own Damn Killin’: Benny Binion, Herbert Noble, and the Texas Gambling War, by Gary Sleeper

I’ll Do My Own Damn Killin’ —a slogan that needs to be on a t-shirt!—  is a rarely-told history of Dallas gambling history, a huge showdown killing instigated by the notorious gangster Benny Binion, and the crazy life of the Dallas G-Men. 

Binion is best known  for opening the Horseshoe Casino in Las Vegas, symbolized by the horseshoe in the front lobby that showed off a million dollars in $10,000 bills encased in plastic.

(The casino sold the horseshoe off in 2000 because the scarcity of $10,000 bills— little over 300 remained in circulation— made the display worth far more than a million bucks).

Binion led the Texas gambling underground in a savage war against his onetime partner, Herbert Noble, that lasted over 15 years. Noble survived at least eleven attacks on his life between 1938 and 1951, when a bomb planted in his mailbox finally killed him. Binion was never convicted for involvement in Noble’s death, but there was enough heat to make him leave Texas behind and start a new life—and a whole new legend—in Las Vegas.

With chapters like “The Plot to Bomb Las Vegas” and “That’s the Stuff That Killed My Wife,” Sleeper’s biography never slows down. Another winner for true-crime fans.

--Aretha Bright

The Murder Stables of Harlem

 

Gangsters of Harlem: The Gritty Underworld of New York’s Most Famous Neighborhood, by Ron Chepesiuk

 I fell in love with the mobsters in Gangsters of Harlem just as many people have with the characters in The Wire or The Sopranos.

There’s a long literary tradition about the Harlem underworld—most notably Chester Himes's novels about policemen Gravedigger Jones and Coffin Ed Johnson—but it's been neglected by modern popular culture.

As Chepesiuk shows in this book, the organized crime bosses in Harlem were every bit as powerful and compelling as those who have become modern pop icons, like Al Capone, Lucky Luciano, or Carlo Gambino.

Despite their shady business, it was easy—disturbingly so—to become invested in these mobsters. One detail that's going to stick with me for a long time is Chepesiuk's description of the "Murder Stables," owned by Ignazio Lupo of the Morello Gang, where hundreds of his rivals were tortured and murdered  in the early 1900s.

True crime fans are going to eat this up with a spoon. Listening to jazz in the nightclub, witnessing  a brutal murder—it's so intimate that you can almost feel complicit.

In a Wire-esque finale, Chepesiuk looks at the involvement of the NYPD with organized crime. If your cup of tea includes a dash of lethal bathtub gin, this is your hot toddy.

--Aretha Bright

Pricing Beauty: Putting Cash Numbers on a Model's Head

 

Pricing Beauty: The Making of a Fashion Model, by Ashley Mears

 How much money is beauty worth? The sentimental answer  is that you can’t put a price on beauty; its value is beyond measure.

But every magazine we read and television show we watch tells us otherwise. There are industries filled with people whose jobs consist entirely of calculating how much beauty costs, and then telling you what you have to do to get it.

(Hint: It’s not cheap.)

Pricing Beauty is a perceptive and eye opening look at the modeling industry and an investigation on model success and failure.  You’ll find lots of delicious tidbits from fashion insiders and models in this book, so delicious! 

Mears is a former NY and London fashion model turned academic— since she used to be a fashion insider, she was able to provide that rare look into the industry that other sociologists have found elusive. 

Listen to exclusive interviews with models, agents, clients, designers, and stylists. Learn how the “right look” is discovered and developed, how far models and agents are willing to go to promote themselves, or how clients decide to hire them. 

Listen to this book and you’ll never watch America’s Top Model the same way again.

--Aretha Bright

The Prince's Boy— and Gay YA Rock Stars... Cecilia Tan on Audio!

Cecilia Tan is the publisher/impresario of Circlet Press, the most successful fantasy-sci-fi outlier press of the last forty years, starting with her underground hit, Telepaths Don't Need Safe Words.

 Tan has survived and flourished while every other competitor cried "Uncle!"— and it's all due to her indomitable spirit and creativity. Audible’s got two of her erotica series up for sale now.

 

The Prince’s Boy, Volumes 1 & 2

Tan makes the unfathomable  seem totally reasonable— The Prince’s Boy takes place in a world where male/male lust feeds magical powers. Wizards are very busy in the bedroom.

"Prince Kenet" seeks pleasure with his whipping boy, Jorin, while a war that threatens the kingdom swirls around them. "Seroi," the dark magician, tries to bespell the Prince and enslave him as his submissive lover, as well as take over the kingdom.

The Prince and his “boy” struggle to stay together—can love overcome magical chains?

 Three Musketeers  meets  The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty.

 

Daron’s Guitar Chronicles Volumes 1, 2, & 3

 Daron's Guitar Chronicle is like Almost Famous, except in this story the boy isn’t so innocent.

Oh, and he’s gay, and it’s the 80s. 

Daron Marks is a young guitar player with a dream, to make it big like the guys he grew up idolizing in New Jersey—or at least escape his dysfunctional family. He makes it as far as music school in Rhode Island, and the rock clubs of Boston beckon him.

But it's hard to succeed from the closet.

This is a sex, drugs, and rock ‘n roll coming-of-age— A Young Adult tale for adults. Follow Daron as his band becomes famous, he goes on tour, and falls in love with the band's lead singer, Ziggy...

I love gay YA!

--AB

Boys Don't Cry? Kevin Jennings on Growing Up and Coming Out

Mama’s Boy, Preacher’s Son: A Memoir of Growing Up, Coming Out, and Changing America’s Schools by Kevin Jennings

Kevin Jennings needed an “It Gets Better” video when he was growing up, but there was no such thing in the 1960s.  It was a serious matter to appear “manly” and “Christian” in his home town. Baseball and touch football were expected, and no crying allowed, ever.

Even when his father died at his 8^th birthday party, Jennings knew he couldn’t show tears.

The teasing and awkwardness of Jennings’ childhood will make you cringe, but it’s a triumphant feeling when he leaves his trailer park home in North Carolina and heads off to Harvard. But even more surprising is when Kevin decides to go back home and teach, after coming out of the closet. He ends up rocking the whole town and has nail-biting standoffs with the townies. Jennings’s story as a Lone Star gay activist in the south didn’t end in his hometown, though. Today, he’s best known as the founder of the Gay Lesbian Straight Education Network (GLSEN), which works in schools nationwide to make sure that things do get better for LGBT youth. 

--Aretha Bright

A Sandhills Ballad: Love, Death, and Loss of Limb on the Great Plains

A Sandhills Ballad, by Ladette Randolph

When I wrote the audiobook casting notes for this title, I said, “Get a Great Plains woman who’s been through the mill!”

Randolph’s protagonist, Mary Rasmussen, is that woman. She was born and raised on a ranch in the middle of Nowhere, Nebraska—aka The Sandhills. The story opens with Mary in the hospital, waking up to discover that she’s missing a leg, and her husband is dead. Her isolation and despair drive her to marry a preacher who makes her life unbearable.

I was wondering the whole time if she was going to murder him in his sleep— but I won’t spoil what actually happens…

--Aretha Bright

Katie Williams Takes a Teen Misfit Into The Space Between Trees

 

The Space Between Trees, by Katie Williams

Ahhh... A story many teenagers could relate to: A 16-year old misfit, with no real friends, and a huge crush on a boy who barely acknowledges her presence.

Except! — this story begins with a paper route in the middle of nowhere... and a murder.

The "bad girl" that our lonely heroine befriends—of course, it has to be the bad girl!— is a great character. (I was rooting for them to hook up, instead of her and the boy).

Space Between Trees is simply beautiful writing; author Katie Williams is a stand0ut. The remoteness of the location puts you in the forest, far away from everything. The title is a perfect fit.

The Chronicle Books cover design, although it isn't "felt" in the audio edition, is over the top, even for them.  No one could pass this book on display in a store, without reaching to open it. Once they find it, they’ll love hearing it read out loud. 

A Junior Library Guild Selection and a Publishers' Weekly Starred Review.

Narrated by wonderful YA actor, Emily Eiden.

--Aretha  and Susie Bright