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Listen to this audiobook in full for free onhttps://hotaudiobook.com/free Title: What Is Free Speech?: The History of a Dangerous IdeaAuthor: Fara DabhoiwalaNarrator: TBDFormat: UnabridgedLength: 0:00:00Language: EnglishRelease date: 03-27-2025Publisher: PGRH UKGenres: History, Politics, World, Political AdvocacySummary:Brought to you by Penguin. ‘Free Speech!’ is a clarion call all over the world, yet what it means today is more contested than ever. Many cultures regard it as dangerous: in China, India, and across the Islamic world, unorthodox views about politics, sex, and religion are repressed and people are often punished for expressing them. Even in the western world, where it is held up as a core value, there is widespread discord and disagreement about what freedom of expression means. Amidst perennial imbalances of power, continually evolving cultural taboos, dramatic new technologies and a fast-changing global media landscape, where free speech comes from, and how we might think about it, are critical questions. Through the lens of history, What Is Free Speech? shows us that freedom of speech is not an absolute form from which societies and regimes have drifted or dissented at different times, but something more complicated and interesting. Our modern conceptions of press and speech liberty, Dabhoiwala shows, were invented in Britain around 1700. The real history of freedom of expression is a story of countless fascinating men and women whose lives have shaped its principles and practices over the past 300 years – slaves and imperialists, poets and philosophers, plutocrats and revolutionaries. Ranging across Europe, North America and South Asia, and not neglecting other parts of the world, Dabhoiwala rejects celebratory platitudes about the past and present of free expression. Instead, his book explains how to think more deeply about free speech as a global as well as a local question — by tracing how we got into our current predicaments, showing that history complicates our contemporary presumptions, and suggesting fresh possibilities for the future. © Fara Dabhoiwala 2025 (P) Penguin Audio 2025

Listen to this audiobook in full for free onhttps://hotaudiobook.com/free Title: Lover ForbiddenAuthor: J.R. WardNarrator: UnknownFormat: UnabridgedLength: 11:00:00Language: EnglishRelease date: 03-25-2025Publisher: Simon & Schuster AudioGenres: Science Fiction & Fantasy, Romance, Paranormal, RomantasySummary:The aristocracy is making a run for the throne in this latest thrilling, star-crossed paranormal romance entry in J.R. Ward’s #1 New York Times bestselling Black Dagger Brotherhood series. When Lyric goes out for the night, she’s not ready for a brush with death—and she’s really not ready for the male who comes out of nowhere and saves her. Her family, especially her father, Qhuinn, are so relieved she’s okay, but all she can think about is her mysterious savior. Without telling anybody, she seeks out Devlin, and they are immediately drawn to one another. Her near-death experience has given her a fresh appreciation for life and the desire to live it to its fullest, but she has no idea that he’s hiding a secret—or that he could be the key to ending the war between the Black Dagger Brotherhood and the lessers forever.

Listen to this audiobook in full for free onhttps://hotaudiobook.com/free Title: Adaptable: The Surprising Science of Human DiversityAuthor: Herman PontzerNarrator: TBDFormat: UnabridgedLength: 0:00:00Language: EnglishRelease date: 03-25-2025Publisher: PGRH UKGenres: Non-Fiction, Science & Technology, Biology & Chemistry, Social ScienceSummary:Brought to you by Penguin. A groundbreaking tour of the overlooked science of human diversity Real diversity isn’t skin deep. Over the past 100,000 years, as humans expanded into every biome on the planet, our bodies have been fine-tuned to our local environments. Our ability to adapt is at the heart of being human and the engine of our diversity. As an evolutionary anthropologist working with human populations around the globe, Herman Pontzer has conducted research that reveals the wonder of our biological diversity, documenting the connections between lifestyle, landscape, local adaptations, and health. In this book, he takes us on a tour of the human body and the surprising ways in which it survives in an uncertain world: from the Andean groups who have developed increased lung capacity to the Sama divers who have larger spleens. With so much variation that can be handed down genetically, for better or worse, the way we understand our biology holds huge importance for how we understand our world and one another, including the biggest questions of our day, such as social inequality. Eye-opening and profound, Adaptable is a revolutionary reappraisal of an overlooked science. © Herman Pontzer 2025 (P) Penguin Audio 2025

Listen to this audiobook in full for free onhttps://hotaudiobook.com/free Title: Nowhere: A NovelAuthor: Allison GunnNarrator: UnknownFormat: UnabridgedLength: 10:30:00Language: EnglishRelease date: 03-25-2025Publisher: Simon & Schuster AudioGenres: Science Fiction & Fantasy, Fiction & Literature, Mystery, Thriller & Horror, Paranormal, LGBTQ+Summary:Mare of Easttown meets The Outsider in this spine-tingling and twisty debut about a series of disappearances in a small, fundamentalist town and what one broken family must do to remain together as dark forces close in. After losing her young son in an accident, Rachel Kennan throws herself into her career as police chief of a small Virginia town to avoid focusing on her grief. Meanwhile, her husband, Finn, a washed-up writer whose alcoholism led to the devastating tragedy that changed everything, struggles to redeem himself before his family completely falls apart. Their two daughters are the only things keeping Rachel and Finn together, but the girls have demons of their own. At the same time, a disturbing crime rocks their tightknit, religious community, sending Rachel chasing leads in a place that does not take kindly to outsiders. When an ominous force in the forest starts calling to the children, fear spawns hate among the townspeople, placing the Kennan family directly in the line of fire. Left with no choice but to rely on each other, Rachel and Finn must come together to face threats inside and out. A haunting family saga and a disquieting horror debut, Nowhere draws from Appalachian folklore to caution us that true terror is what we bury in our own hearts.

Listen to this audiobook in full for free onhttps://hotaudiobook.com/free Title: Story She Left Behind: A NovelAuthor: Patti Callahan HenryNarrator: UnknownFormat: UnabridgedLength: 12:00:00Language: EnglishRelease date: 03-18-2025Publisher: Simon & Schuster AudioGenres: Fiction & Literature, Historical Fiction, Literary Fiction, Contemporary WomenSummary:Inspired by a true literary mystery, New York Times bestselling author of the mesmerizing The Secret Book of Flora Lea returns with the sweeping story of a legendary book, a lost mother, and a daughter’s search for them both. In 1927, eight-year-old Clara Harrington’s magical childhood shatters when her mother, renowned author, Bronwyn Newcastle Fordham, disappears off the coast of South Carolina. Bronwyn stunned the world with a book written in an invented language that became a national sensation when she was just twelve years old. Her departure leaves behind not only a devoted husband and heartbroken daughter, but also the hope of ever translating the sequel to her landmark work. As the headlines focus on the missing author, Clara yearns for something far deeper and more insatiable: her beautiful mother. By 1952, Clara is an illustrator raising her own daughter, Wynnie. When a stranger named Charlie Jameson contacts her from London claiming to have discovered a handwritten dictionary of her mother’s lost language. Clara is skeptical. Compelled by the tragedy of her mother’s vanishing, she crosses the Atlantic with Wynnie only to arrive during one of London’s most deadly natural disasters—the Great Smog. With asthmatic Wynnie in peril, they escape the city with Charlie and find refuge in the Jameson’s family retreat nestled in the Lake District. It is there that Clara must find the courage to uncover the truth about her mother and the story she left behind. Told in Patti Callahan Henry’s lyrical, enchanting prose, The Story She Left Behind is a captivating novel of mystery and family legacy that captures the profound longing for a mother and the evergreen allure of secrets.

Listen to this audiobook in full for free onhttps://hotaudiobook.com/free Title: Mesopotamian Riddle: An Archaeologist, a Soldier, a Clergyman and the Race to Decipher the World's Oldest WritingAuthor: Joshua HammerNarrator: UnknownFormat: UnabridgedLength: 10:00:00Language: EnglishRelease date: 03-18-2025Publisher: Simon & Schuster AudioGenres: Biography & Memoir, Middle East, History & Culture, Language Instruction, Language ArtsSummary:A rollicking adventure starring three free-spirited Victorians on a twenty-year quest to decipher cuneiform, the oldest writing in the world—from the New York Times bestselling author of The Bad-Ass Librarians of Timbuktu. It was one of history’s great vanishing acts. Around 3,400 BCE—as humans were gathering in complex urban settlements—a scribe in the mud-walled city-state of Uruk picked up a reed stylus to press tiny symbols into clay. For three millennia, wedge shape cuneiform script would record the military conquests, scientific discoveries, and epic literature of the great Mesopotamian kingdoms of Sumer, Assyria, and Babylon and of Persia’s mighty Achaemenid Empire, along with precious minutiae about everyday life in the cradle of civilization. And then…the meaning of the characters was lost. London, 1857. In an era obsessed with human progress, mysterious palaces emerging from the desert sands had captured the Victorian public’s imagination. Yet Europe’s best philologists struggled to decipher the bizarre inscriptions excavators were digging up. Enter a swashbuckling archaeologist, a suave British military officer turned diplomat, and a cloistered Irish rector, all vying for glory in a race to decipher this script that would enable them to peek farther back into human history than ever before. From the ruins of Persepolis to lawless outposts of the crumbling Ottoman Empire, The Mesopotamian Riddle whisks you on a wild adventure through the golden age of archaeology in an epic quest to understand our past.

Listen to this audiobook in full for free onhttps://hotaudiobook.com/free Title: Red Scare: Blacklists, McCarthyism and the Making of Modern AmericaAuthor: Clay RisenNarrator: UnknownFormat: UnabridgedLength: 15:00:00Language: EnglishRelease date: 03-18-2025Publisher: Simon & Schuster AudioGenres: History, North America, Global Politics, RussiaSummary:As relevant as it is comprehensive, Red Scare tells the story of McCarthyism and the Red Scare—based in part on newly declassified sources—by an award-winning writer of history and New York Times reporter. The film Oppenheimer has awakened interest in this vital period of American history. Now, for the first time in a generation, Red Scare presents a narrative history of the anti-Communist witch hunt that gripped America in the decade following World War II. The cultural phenomenon, most often referred to as McCarthyism, was an outgrowth of the conflict between social conservatives and New Deal progressives, coupled with the terrifying onset of the Cold War. This defining moment in American history, unlike any that preceded it, was marked by an unprecedented degree of political hysteria. Drawing upon newly declassified documents, journalist Clay Risen recounts how politicians like Joseph McCarthy, with the help of an extended network of other government officials and organizations, systematically ruined thousands of lives in their deluded pursuit of alleged Communist conspiracies. Beginning with the origins of the era after WWI through to its conclusion in 1957, Risen brings to life the politics, patriotism, opportunism, courage, and delirium of those years through the lives and experiences of a cast of towering historical figures, including President Eisenhower, Roy Cohn, Paul Robeson, Robert Oppenheimer, Helen Gahagan Douglas, Richard Nixon, and many more individuals known and unknown. Red Scare takes us beyond the familiar story of McCarthyism and the Hollywood blacklists to a fuller understanding of what the country went through at a time of moral questioning and perceived threat from the left, and what we were capable of doing to each other as a result. An urgent, accessible, and important history, Red Scare reveals an all-too-familiar pattern of illiberal conspiracy-mongering and political and cultural backlash that speaks directly to the antagonism and divisiveness of our contemporary moment.

Listen to this audiobook in full for free onhttps://hotaudiobook.com/free Title: LuminousAuthor: Silvia ParkNarrator: UnknownFormat: UnabridgedLength: 12:00:00Language: EnglishRelease date: 03-11-2025Publisher: Simon & Schuster AudioGenres: Science Fiction & Fantasy, Fiction & Literature, Family LifeSummary:A highly anticipated, sweeping debut set in a unified Korea that tells the story of three estranged siblings—two human, one robot—as they collide against the backdrop of a murder investigation to settle old scores and make sense of their shattered childhood, perfect for fans of Klara and the Sun and We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves. In a reunified Korea of the future, robots have been integrated into society as surrogates, servants, children, and even lovers. Though boundaries between bionic and organic frequently blur, these robots are decidedly second-class citizens. Jun and Morgan, two siblings estranged for many years, are haunted by the memory of their lost brother, Yoyo, who was warm, sensitive, and very nearly human. Jun, a war veteran turned detective of the lowly Robot Crimes Unit in Seoul, becomes consumed by an investigation that reconnects him with his sister Morgan, now a prominent robot designer working for a top firm, who is, embarrassingly, dating one of her creations in secret. On the other side of Seoul in a junkyard filled with abandoned robots, eleven-year-old Ruijie sifts through scraps looking for robotic parts that might support her failing body. When she discovers a robot boy named Yoyo among the piles of trash, an unlikely bond is formed since Yoyo is so lifelike, he’s unlike anything she’s seen before. While Morgan prepares to launch the most advanced robot-boy of her career, Jun’s investigation sparks a journey through the underbelly of Seoul, unearthing deeper mysteries about the history of their country and their family. The three siblings must find their way back to each other to reckon with their pasts and the future ahead of them in this poignant and remarkable exploration of what it really means to be human.

Listen to this audiobook in full for free onhttps://hotaudiobook.com/free Title: Renegade GriefAuthor: Carla FernandezNarrator: UnknownFormat: UnabridgedLength: 9:00:00Language: EnglishRelease date: 03-11-2025Publisher: Simon & Schuster AudioGenres: Biography & Memoir, Non-Fiction, Health & Wellness, Psychology, Death & BereavementSummary:From grief quests to Dungeons & Dragons to altar making and dinner parties, Renegade Grief is a profound and vulnerable exploration of care practices and rituals that empower grievers in a culture that expects us to simply “give it time.” So, you’ve lost someone. At first, there is an outpour of support and phone calls and care packages. But after the services are done and the phone stops ringing, there is a quiet in the air and an expectation to get on with your life as previously planned. The problem is that death has a way of making all plans go out the window. Renegade Grief offers the support in this next stage of grieving—when you feel isolated in your loss and are figuring out how to navigate it. Shaped by her own experience with the death of her father and her time cofounding The Dinner Party, a leading grief support organization for young people, Carla Fernandez pushes back on the death-denying culture we live in and encourages you to explore how the intensity (or shittiness) of a loss experience can transform into a source of deep connection, personal purpose, and creative expression. Through inspiring stories of real grievers, patterns from across history, and fresh science, Renegade Grief enlivens you with the permission and possibility to explore your grief in your own unique way and reminds you that you’re not alone in doing it. Renegade Grief is an indispensable resource for people at any stage of the grieving process and with Carla’s candid and compassionate guidance, you learn that life after loss isn’t about the futile attempt of arriving at some other side. Rather, it’s about building your community, adjusting to change, and finding the way for your grief to become a pathway into your own version of a soulful life.

Listen to this audiobook in full for free onhttps://hotaudiobook.com/free Title: Witness 8: A NovelAuthor: Steve CavanaghNarrator: UnknownFormat: UnabridgedLength: 12:00:00Language: EnglishRelease date: 03-11-2025Publisher: Simon & Schuster AudioGenres: Mystery, Thriller & Horror, SuspenseSummary:This riveting psychological thriller from master of twists Steve Cavanagh, author of the “unguessable and unputdownable” (Alex Michaelides, #1 New York Times bestselling author) Kill For Me, Kill for You, asks: What if the witness was more twisted than the killer? Something is wrong with Ruby Johnson. A former resident of the ultra-elite Manhattan upper class, Ruby now works as a maid in the type of houses she used to live in. Unassuming, she sees everyone’s dirty secrets from the inside of their beautiful, renovated brownstones. But when Ruby witnesses a murder, she has wicked plans in mind that don’t involve telling the authorities the truth. Eddie Flynn, streetwise ex con-artist-turned-defense attorney, is the only lawyer in New York City willing to take on hopeless cases. And none is more hopeless than John Jackson’s—the gun that killed his neighbor found, with Jackson’s DNA, in his own home. Flynn and his unconventional team will need to use every trick they know to keep an innocent man from being locked up. But to save his client’s life, Eddie must first protect his own, as the scariest organized criminals in the city are out for his head. Perfect for fans of Lisa Jewell and Megan Miranda, Witness 8 is a fresh knockout page-turner from an author who is “the real deal” (Lee Child, #1 New York Times bestselling author).

Listen to this audiobook in full for free onhttps://hotaudiobook.com/free Title: Manor of DreamsAuthor: Christina LiNarrator: UnknownFormat: UnabridgedLength: 11:30:00Language: EnglishRelease date: 03-11-2025Publisher: Simon & Schuster AudioGenres: Fiction & Literature, Family Life, Asian American LiteratureSummary:Mexican Gothic meets The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo in Christina Li’s haunting novel about the secrets that lie in wait in the crumbling mansion of a former Hollywood starlet, and the intertwined fates of the two Chinese American families fighting to inherit it. They say what you don’t know can’t hurt you. But silence can be deadly. Vivian Yin is dead. The first Chinese actress to win an Oscar, the trailblazing ingénue rose to fame in the eighties, only to disappear from the spotlight at the height of her career and live out the rest of her life as a recluse. Now her remaining family members are gathered for the reading of her will and her daughters expect to inherit their childhood home: Vivian’s sprawling, Southern California garden estate. But due to a last-minute change to the will, the house is passed on to another family instead—one that has suddenly returned after decades of estrangement. In hopes of staking their claim, both families move into the mansion. Amidst the grief and paranoia of this unhappy reunion, Vivian’s daughters race to piece together what happened in the last weeks of their mother’s life, only to realize they are being haunted by something much more sinister and vengeful than their regrets. After so many years of silence, will the families finally confront the painful truth about the last fateful summer they spent in the house, or will they cling to their secrets until it’s too late? Told in dual timelines, spanning three generations, and brimming with forbidden romance, betrayal, ambition and sacrifice, The Manor of Dreams is a thrilling family gothic that examines the true cost of the American dream—and what happens when the roots we set down in this country turn to rot.

Listen to this audiobook in full for free onhttps://hotaudiobook.com/free Title: Women on Platform TwoAuthor: Laura AnthonyNarrator: UnknownFormat: UnabridgedLength: 10:00:00Language: EnglishRelease date: 03-11-2025Publisher: Simon & Schuster AudioGenres: Fiction & Literature, Contemporary Women, Family LifeSummary:In 1970s Dublin, all forms of contraception are strictly forbidden, but an intrepid group of women will risk everything to change that in this sweeping, timely novel inspired by a remarkable and little-known true story. Dublin, 1969: Maura has just married Dr. Christy Davenport and they look forward to growing their family. But as her husband’s vicious temper emerges, Maura worries that her home might never be safe for a child. Meanwhile, her close friend Bernie, a mother of three, learns the devastating news that if she conceives again, her health complications could prove fatal. Dublin, 2023: A close call makes Saoirse realize that she may never want to be a mother. Little does she know that only a few decades ago, a group of women made this option possible for her. And she’s about to meet one of them… The Women on Platform Two is a haunting, powerful story of feminine resistance and resilience that reminds us all of where we started—and how far we still have to go.

Listen to this audiobook in full for free onhttps://hotaudiobook.com/free Title: Me, But BetterAuthor: Olga KhazanNarrator: Olga KhazanFormat: UnabridgedLength: 7:30:00Language: EnglishRelease date: 03-11-2025Publisher: Simon & Schuster AudioGenres: Non-Fiction, Self Development, Health & Wellness, PsychologySummary:Is it really possible to change your entire personality in a year? The Atlantic journalist Olga Khazan proves that it is in Me, But Better, which covers her year-long experiment in personality change. Perfect for fans of 10% Happier and Year of Yes. In recent years, Olga Khazan had been spiraling toward an existential crisis. Though she treasured her loving, long-term relationship and her dream job, she often caught herself snatching dissatisfaction from the jaws of happiness. Her neurotic overachieving had always been a professional asset, but lately, Olga felt that her brittle disposition could shatter under the weight of just one more thing. She knew something had to give—but was it really possible to change her entire approach to life? In Me, But Better, Olga embarks on a year-long experiment to see if it’s truly possible to change your personality, sample size: one. Scientifically, personality consists of five sliding-scale traits: extroversion (how sociable you are); conscientiousness (how self-disciplined and organized you are); agreeableness (how warm and empathetic you are); openness (how receptive you are to new ideas and activities); and neuroticism (how depressed or anxious you are). But research shows that you can alter these traits by consistently behaving in ways that align with the kind of person you’d like to be. And that, in turn, can make you happier, healthier, and more successful. So, for one year, Olga decided to fake it until she made it. She reluctantly clicked “yes” on a bucket list of new experiences, from meditation to improv to sailing, that forced her to at least act happy, healthy, and well-adjusted, in the hope that she would actually become those things. With a skeptic’s eye, Olga brings you on her personal journey through the science of personality, presenting evidence-backed techniques to change your mind for the better. Based on her viral article in The Atlantic, Me, But Better is a probing inquiry into what it means to live a fulfilling life, and how you can keep diving into change, no matter how uncomfortable it feels.

Listen to this audiobook in full for free onhttps://hotaudiobook.com/free Title: History of the World in Six Plagues: How Contagion, Class, and Captivity Shaped Us, from Cholera to Covid-19Author: Edna BonhommeNarrator: UnknownFormat: UnabridgedLength: 8:00:00Language: EnglishRelease date: 03-11-2025Publisher: Simon & Schuster AudioGenres: History, Non-Fiction, North America, Science & Technology, Social ScienceSummary:A deeply reported, insightful, and literary account of humankind’s battles with epidemic disease, and their outsized role in deepening inequality along racial, ethnic, class, and gender lines—in the vein of Medical Apartheid and Killing the Black Body. Epidemic diseases enter the world by chance, but they become catastrophic by human design. With clear-eyed research and lush prose, A History of the World in Six Plagues shows that throughout history, outbreaks of disease have been exacerbated by and gone on to further expand the racial, economic, and sociopolitical divides we allow to fester in times of good health. Princeton-trained historian Edna Bonhomme’s examination of humanity’s disastrous treatment of pandemic disease takes us across place and time from Port-au-Prince to Tanzania, and from plantation-era America to our modern COVID-19-scarred world to unravel shocking truths about the patterns of discrimination in the face of disease. Based on in-depth research and cultural analysis, Bonhomme explores Cholera, HIV/AIDS, the Spanish Flu, Sleeping Sickness, Ebola, and COVID-19 amidst the backdrop of unequal public policy. But much more than a remarkable history, A History of the World in Six Plagues is also a rising call for change.

Listen to this audiobook in full for free onhttps://hotaudiobook.com/free Title: Malinalli: A NovelAuthor: Veronica ChapaNarrator: UnknownFormat: UnabridgedLength: 12:00:00Language: EnglishRelease date: 03-11-2025Publisher: Simon & Schuster AudioGenres: Science Fiction & Fantasy, Romance, Fiction & Literature, General, Historical, Multicultural & InterracialSummary:An imaginative retelling of the triumphs and sorrows of one of the most controversial and misunderstood women in Mexico’s history and mythology, perfect for fans of Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s Gods of Jade and Shadow and Zoraida Córdova’s The Inheritance of Orquídea Divina. A real-life historical figure, the woman known as Malinalli, Malintzin, La Malinche, Doña Marina, and Malinalxochitl was the Nahua interpreter who helped Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés communicate with the native people of Mexico. When indigenous leaders observed her marching into their cities, they believed she was a goddess—blessed with the divine power to interpret the Spaniards’ intentions for their land. Later, historians and pop culture would deem her a traitor—the “Indian” girl who helped sell Mexico’s future to an invader. In this riveting, fantastical retelling, Malinalli is all of those things and more, but at heart, she’s a young girl, kidnapped into slavery by age twelve, and fighting to survive the devastation wrought by both the Spanish and Moctezuma’s greed and cruelty. Blessed with magical powers, and supported by a close-knit circle of priestesses, Mali vows to help defend her people’s legacy. In vivid, compelling prose, debut author Veronica Chapa spins an epic tale of magic, sisterhood, survival, and Mexican resilience. This is the first novel to reimagine and reinterpret Malinalli’s story with the empathy, humanity, and awe she’s always deserved.