2004 Audie Awards®

"'You are sharing the Dark Lord's thoughts and emotions. The Headmaster thinks it inadvisable for this to continue. He wishes me to teach you how to close your mind to the Dark Lord.'"

Dark times have come to Hogwarts. After the Dementors' attack on his cousin Dudley, Harry Potter knows that Voldemort will stop at nothing to find him. There are many who deny the Dark Lord's return, but Harry is not alone: a secret order gathers at Grimmauld Place to fight against the Dark forces. Harry must allow Professor Snape to teach him how to protect himself from Voldemort's savage assaults on his mind. But they are growing stronger by the day and Harry is running out of time...

Between the lamppost and Cair Paravel on the eastern sea lies Narnia, a mystical land where animals hold the power of speech...woodland creatures conspire with men...dark forces, bent on conquest, gather at the world’s rim to wage war against the realm’s rightful king...and the great lion Aslan is the only hope. Into this enchanted world comes a group of unlikely travelers. These ordinary boys and girls, when faced with peril, learn extraordinary lessons in courage, self-sacrifice, friendship, and honor. 

The Chronicles of Narnia includes The Magician's Nephew; The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe; The Horse and His Boy; Prince Caspian; The Voyage of the Dawn Treader; The Silver Chair; and The Last Battle.

For the first time in audio publishing history, all of Shakespeare's plays are available in one extraordinary, definitive collection. Based on ''The Complete Pelican Shakespeare'', here are all of the master's 38 plays, complete and unabridged, fully dramatized on CDs with an original score and sound design for each play. 

A monumental project that spanned five years and cost $3 million, ''The Complete Arkangel Shakespeare'' represents the collective vision of four people: Shakespeare scholar Tom Treadwell, film producer Bill Shepherd, BBC director Clive Brill, and composer Dominique Le Gendre. Together they have assembled the 400 great actors of the British theater and produced a landmark digital recording with a sophisticated layering of sound that immerses the listener in Shakespeare's world.

In the midst of rehearsals for the very first production of William Shakespear's ghostly Macbeth in 1606, the Globe Theater's timbers and players are shaken by a series of murders that follow a pattern copied for Hamlet. Murders that seem to be committed by a ghost seeking revenge.

London, 1606. Murders that mirror and interrupt Shakespeare's plays are afoot in the Globe Theatre and everyone is a suspect, even Shakespeare. Some suspect a ghost. It is up to puritanical High Constable Colin Makepeace to sort through the dead ends and false trails to find the truth and the killer. Along the way, the straitlaced constable finds he is falling in love with Nell Dancer, the spirited tavern owner who is Shakespeare's London girlfriend.

Edith Hahn was an outspoken young woman in Vienna when the Gestapo forced her into a ghetto and then into a slave labor camp. When she returned home months later, she knew she would become a hunted woman, so she went underground.

She emerged in Munich as "Grete Denner". There she met Werner Vetter, a Nazi Party member who fell in love with her. Despite Edith's protests and even her eventual confession that she was Jewish, he married her and kept her identity secret.

Growing up, Barbara Corcoran shared one floor in a three-family house in New Jersey with her parents and nine brothers and sisters. She had few luxuries, but she was blessed with a mother who taught her to have self-confidence. Barbara's mom didn't know much about business, but she understood how the world works, and how to make the most of what you've got.

After failing at twenty-two other jobs, Barbara borrowed $1,000 from a boyfriend, quit her job as a diner waitress, and started a tiny real estate office in New York City. Today, with over $4 billion in revenues, The Corcoran Group is New York's premier real estate company, and Barbara is richer than her wildest dreams.

"'You are sharing the Dark Lord's thoughts and emotions. The Headmaster thinks it inadvisable for this to continue. He wishes me to teach you how to close your mind to the Dark Lord.'"

Dark times have come to Hogwarts. After the Dementors' attack on his cousin Dudley, Harry Potter knows that Voldemort will stop at nothing to find him. There are many who deny the Dark Lord's return, but Harry is not alone: a secret order gathers at Grimmauld Place to fight against the Dark forces. Harry must allow Professor Snape to teach him how to protect himself from Voldemort's savage assaults on his mind. But they are growing stronger by the day and Harry is running out of time...

Chato—the coolest cat in the barrio—loves to party. So when he learns that Novio Boy has never had a birthday party, Chato decides to throw him a surprise pachanga. He gets right to work—inviting everyone in the neighborhood, cooking up a feast, arranging for music and a piñata, and even ordering a special cake. Chato’s sure that he’s thought of everything. 

But when it comes time for the party, he realizes that he forgot the most important thing of all—to invite the birthday boy! With a lively text featuring Spanish words throughout, this sequel to Chato’s Kitchen is truly a cause for celebration.

In his journal, Nobel Prize winner John Steinbeck called East of Eden "the first book," and indeed it has the primordial power and simplicity of myth. Set in the rich farmland of California's Salinas Valley, this sprawling and often brutal novel follows the intertwined destinies of two families—the Trasks and the Hamiltons—whose generations helplessly reenact the fall of Adam and Eve and the poisonous rivalry of Cain and Abel.

The masterpiece of Steinbeck’s later years, East of Eden is a work in which Steinbeck created his most mesmerizing characters and explored his most enduring themes: the mystery of identity, the inexplicability of love, and the murderous consequences of love's absence. Adapted for the 1955 film directed by Elia Kazan introducing James Dean, and read by thousands as the book that brought Oprah’s Book Club back, East of Eden has remained vitally present in American culture for over half a century.

Nanzeen's inauspicious birth in a Bangladeshi village imbues in her a sense of fatalism that she carries across continents. Married off to a man old enough to be her father, Nanzeen moves to London and cares for her family. But gradually she begins to question whether fate controls her or whether she has a hand in her own destiny. She discovers both the complexity that comes with free choice and the depth of her attachment to her husband, her daughters and her new world.

While Nanzeen journeys along her path of self-realization, her sister, Hasina, rushes headlong at her life. Woven through the novel, Hasina's letters from Dhaka recount a world of overwhelming adversity. Shaped, yet not bound, by their landscapes and memories, both sisters struggle to dream, and live, beyond the rules prescribed for them.

Meet Yumi Fuller. A Japanese-American prodigal daughter, Yumi (aka Yummy) is returning home to the Idaho potato farm she ran away from twenty-five years earlier. Then a freewheeling hippie chick, Yumi is now a fairly responsible parent and a professor with a side gig selling lava lots in Hawaii. But can she possibly be prepared to face her dying father, her Alzheimer's-devastated mother, and Cass, the best friend she left behind?

As she grapples with her conflicted past and uncertain future, Yumi collides with the Seeds of Resistance, a rollicking band of environmentalists who see her parents' potato farm as an ideal in their fight against genetic engineering.

If you are driving, pull over. If you are at work, close your door, unless you don't mind your colleagues seeing you doubled over, in tears, on your office floor. With this recording, taped before a delirious sold out audience at Carnegie Hall, you are there as David Sedaris performs new stories from his upcoming book. A parrot who mimics an ice maker, lovers quarreling over a rubber hand, and a Santa Claus who moonlights from his job as bishop of Turkey, the cast of characters in these stories is like no other. 

This new work will appeal to David's loyal fans as well as admirers of the classic comedy albums of George Carlin, Bill Cosby, and Steve Martin.

Allison and Logan Macintyre's marriage has flourished in the years since World War II. Logan is now a distinguished member of the British Parliament and, at Lady Joanna's passing, Allison finds herself responsible for all of Stonewycke. While the family grieves their loss at the graveside services, an unfamiliar woman arrives to lay a rose on the coffin. Leaving an air of guarded mystery in her wake, the stranger disappears with a whisper intended for no one's ears but her own: "If only I'd come sooner..." 

Filled with questions, Allison and Logan must once again examine their past and rely on their faith to sustain them through discoveries that promise to reshape their lives.

The myth of Deer Woman teaches a lesson on respect. The legend of Crazy Horse illuminates a lesson on humility. And the story of Eagle brings home the importance of compassion. These stories from the heart of Lakota culture and its survival, and their meanings, still resonate deeply with our daily lives.

Rich with storytelling, history, folklore, and Marshall's own personal experiences, The Lakota Way expresses the heart of Native American philosophy and the 12 core qualities that are crucial to the Lakota way of living: bravery, fortitude, generosity, wisdom, respect, honor, perseverance, love, humility, sacrifice, truth, and compassion.

In 1861, the Civil War reached the mountainous South—where the enemy was your neighbor, the victims were your friends, and the wrong army was whichever one you joined. When Malinda Blalock's husband, Keith, joined the army, she dressed as a boy and went with him. They spent the war close to home in the North Carolina mountains, acting as Union guerrilla fighters, raiding the farms of Confederate sympathizers and making as much trouble as they could locally. As hard riding, deadly out-laws, Keith and Malinda avenged Confederate raids on their kin and neighbors. 

Linking the forces of historical unrest with the present-day stories of mountain wisefolk Rattler and Nora Bonesteel, it is up to Nora Bonesteel and Rattler to calm the Civil War ghosts who are still wandering the mountains, and prevent a clash between the living and the dead.

Only the money was real. Four years ago, LAPD detective Harry Bosch was on a movie set, asking questions about the murder of a young production assistant, when an armored car arrived with $2 million cash for use in a heist scene. In a life-imitates-art firestorm, a gang of masked men converged on the delivery and robbed the armored car with guns blazing. And the young woman's murder was in the stack of unsolved-case files Bosch carried home the night he left the LAPD.

Now Bosch moves full-bore back into that case, determined to find justice for the young woman. Without a badge to open doors and strike fear in the guilty, he learns afresh how brutally indifferent the world can be. With every conversation and every thread of evidence, Bosch senses a larger presence, an organization bigger than the movie studios and more ruthless than even the LAPD. The part of Bosch that will never back down finds as fatal an opponent as he's ever encountered—and there's no guarantee that Bosch will survive the showdown ahead.

Amy Tan has touched millions of people with haunting and sympathetic novels of cultural complexity and profound empathy. With the same spirit and humor that characterize her acclaimed novels, she now shares her insight into her own life and how she escaped the curses of her past to make a future of her own. She takes us on a journey from her childhood of tragedy and comedy to the present day and her arrival as one of the world's best-loved novelists. 

Whether recalling arguments with her mother in suburban California or introducing us to the ghosts that inhabit her computer, The Opposite of Fate offers vivid portraits of choices, attitudes, charms, and luck in action—a refreshing antidote to the world-weariness and uncertainties we all face today.

Charlie Wilson's War is the untold story behind the last battle of the Cold War and how it fueled the rise of militant Islam. George Crile tells how Charlie Wilson, a maverick congressman from east Texas, conspired with a rogue CIA operative to launch the biggest, meanest, and most successful covert operation in the agency's history.

In the early 1980s, after a Houston socialite turned Wilson's attention to the ragged Afghan freedom fighters who continued to fight the Soviet invaders despite overwhelming odds, the congressman became passionate about their cause and procured hundreds of millions of dollars to support the mujahideen.

Moving from the back rooms of the Capitol, to secret chambers at Langley, to arms-dealers conventions, to the Khyber Pass, this book is a detailed and brilliantly reported account of the inside workings of the CIA.

This extraordinary immersive experience is an insider's walking tour of the Bronx and a tribute to its overwhelming influence on sports, music and art. Focusing on three significant neighborhoods—Yankee Stadium, Hunts Point, and Soundview—each 45 minute walking tour is narrated by a legendary Bronx figure who takes you to places which only a native could really know.  

Learn the secrets of Yankee Stadium from longtime Yankee staff member and rabid fan Tony Morante. Hear BG 183 of TATS Cru recount how his band of graffiti artists ruled the New York subways.ronx Soundwalk is an unforgettable tour of one of this country’s most unique cultural areas.

"'You are sharing the Dark Lord's thoughts and emotions. The Headmaster thinks it inadvisable for this to continue. He wishes me to teach you how to close your mind to the Dark Lord.'"

Dark times have come to Hogwarts. After the Dementors' attack on his cousin Dudley, Harry Potter knows that Voldemort will stop at nothing to find him. There are many who deny the Dark Lord's return, but Harry is not alone: a secret order gathers at Grimmauld Place to fight against the Dark forces. Harry must allow Professor Snape to teach him how to protect himself from Voldemort's savage assaults on his mind. But they are growing stronger by the day and Harry is running out of time...

You have a decision to make. Those are the opening words Dr. Phil uses in his new and groundbreaking weight loss book. You know he is talking to you if you are among the millions who have chased one fad diet after another, none of which ever works. Dr. Phil is talking about the decision you have to make to change all of that. You know those crash diets never last, and you have to quit lying to yourself and get real about making the ultimate choice to finally take control of your weight and your life. "If you are overweight, you are out of control. That's not a natural place to be," says Dr. Phil. The Ultimate Weight Solution will give you the control that you crave. 

Dr. Phil wants to lead you to weight loss freedom. He's spent over thirty years working with overweight patients to get results that last. Now, in The Ultimate Weight Solution, he sounds his loudest wake-up call yet, giving the bottom-line truth and his unprecedented 7 Key approach to permanent weight loss. 

The small, insufferably arrogant, strictly fundamentalist duchy of Borogravia has once again started a war with one of its neighbors. This time, however, it's Borogravia that's getting its long overdue comeuppance, which has severely drained the country of young men. 

Ever since her brother Paul marched off to battle, Polly Perks has been running The Duchess, her family's inn. When Paul goes MIA, Polly is willing to resort to drastic measures to find him. She cuts off her hair, dons masculine garb, and sets out to join him in this man's army. 

Polly's fear that someone will see through her disguise proves groundless when the legendary Sergeant Jackrum accepts her without question. Or perhaps the sergeant is too desperate to discriminate, which would explain why a vampire, a troll, a zombie, a religious fanatic, an Igor, and a werewolf are also eagerly welcomed into the fighting fold. But duty calls, and now they are in the thick of it without any training; only their courage, ingenuity, and honor.

"It's been a quite week in Lake Wobegon, my home town..." Each week, more than three million radio listeners eagerly anticipate these words—and the gentle, meandering, expertly crafted, frequently funny, and often deeply moving tale from Garrison Keillor that follows.

In a line of bestselling collections that began with News from Lake Wobegon, this set of Lake Wobegon monologues is selected from four years (1999-2002) of live radio programs. Some were broadcast from the Fitzgerald Theatre, the show's St. Paul home, while others were recorded on the road in Dublin, Ireland; Pasadena, California; Grand Forks, North Dakota; and other exotic places.

As National Public Radio's senior foreign correspondent, Anne Garrels was one of only sixteen un-embedded American journalists who stayed in Baghdad's now-legendary Palestine Hotel throughout the American invasion of Iraq, placing her at the very center of the storm. 

At the heart of Garrels' narrative is her evolving relationship with her Iraqi driver/minder, Amer, who becomes her friend and confidant, who often serves as her eyes and ears among the populace, taking her where no other reporter was able to penetrate and providing a trenchant counterpoint to the news through his own personal views and experience. The result is an enthralling, deeply personal, utterly authentic and on the ground picture of the war in Iraq. 

Edith Hahn was an outspoken young woman in Vienna when the Gestapo forced her into a ghetto and then into a slave labor camp. When she returned home months later, she knew she would become a hunted woman, so she went underground.

She emerged in Munich as "Grete Denner". There she met Werner Vetter, a Nazi Party member who fell in love with her. Despite Edith's protests and even her eventual confession that she was Jewish, he married her and kept her identity secret.

For police officer Dave Robicheaux, returning home to New Orleans always means visiting old ghosts and exposing old wounds. When he learns that his good friend, Father Jimmie Dolan, has been brutally assaulted, he returns to investigate.

Robicheaux soon finds himself helping Father Dolan looking into a toxic landfill near St. James Parish, which in turn leads to a search for the truth behind the disappearance of a legendary blues musician many years before. And when a maniacal, brilliant, deeply haunted hit man shows up to finish the job on Father Dolan, Robicheaux is drawn deeper into a viper's nest of sordid secrets and escalating violence that sets him up for a confrontation that echoes down the corridors of his own unresolved past.