-
Tightrope
- Americans Reaching for Hope
- Narrated by: Jennifer Garner, Nicholas D. Kristof, Sheryl WuDunn
- Length: 9 hrs and 43 mins
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
Buy for $28.00
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
Listeners also enjoyed...
-
A Path Appears
- Transforming Lives, Creating Opportunity
- By: Sheryl WuDunn, Nicholas D. Kristof
- Narrated by: Oliva Wilde
- Length: 10 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A Path Appears is even more ambitious in scale: nothing less than a sweeping tapestry of people who are making the world a better place and a guide to the ways that we can do the same - whether with a donation of $5 or $5 million, with our time, by capitalizing on our skills as individuals, or by using the resources of our businesses.
-
-
Enlightening Read for Wise Givers (why & how)
- By Jan on 09-25-14
By: Sheryl WuDunn, and others
-
Half the Sky
- Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide
- By: Nicholas D. Kristof, Sheryl WuDunn
- Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell
- Length: 10 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
With Pulitzer Prize winners Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn as our guides, we undertake an odyssey through Africa and Asia to meet the extraordinary women struggling there, among them a Cambodian teenager sold into sex slavery and an Ethiopian woman who suffered devastating injuries in childbirth. Drawing on the breadth of their combined reporting experience, Kristof and WuDunn depict our world with anger, sadness, clarity, and, ultimately, hope. Deeply felt, pragmatic, and inspirational, Half the Sky is essential listening for every global citizen.
-
-
Life changing
- By TJH65 on 11-30-19
By: Nicholas D. Kristof, and others
-
The Dissent Channel
- American Diplomacy in a Dishonest Age
- By: Elizabeth Shackelford
- Narrated by: Suehyla El-Attar
- Length: 10 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 2017, Elizabeth Shackelford wrote a pointed resignation letter to her then boss, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson. She had watched as the State Department was gutted, and now she urged him to stem the bleeding by showing leadership and commitment to his diplomats and the country. If he couldn't do that, she said, "I humbly recommend that you follow me out the door." With that, she sat down to write her story and share an urgent message. In The Dissent Channel, former diplomat Elizabeth Shackelford shows that this is not a new problem.
-
-
Compelling Personal Story & Important Policy Book
- By John David on 06-25-20
-
Caste (Oprah's Book Club)
- The Origins of Our Discontents
- By: Isabel Wilkerson
- Narrated by: Robin Miles
- Length: 14 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this brilliant book, Isabel Wilkerson gives us a masterful portrait of an unseen phenomenon in America as she explores, through an immersive, deeply researched narrative and stories about real people, how America today and throughout its history has been shaped by a hidden caste system, a rigid hierarchy of human rankings.
-
-
Brilliant, articulate, highly listenable.
- By GM on 08-05-20
By: Isabel Wilkerson
-
Evicted
- Poverty and Profit in the American City
- By: Matthew Desmond
- Narrated by: Dion Graham
- Length: 11 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this brilliant, heartbreaking book, Matthew Desmond takes us into the poorest neighborhoods of Milwaukee to tell the story of eight families on the edge. Arleen is a single mother trying to raise her two sons on the $20 a month she has left after paying for their rundown apartment. Scott is a gentle nurse consumed by a heroin addiction. Lamar, a man with no legs and a neighborhood full of boys to look after, tries to work his way out of debt. Vanetta participates in a botched stickup after her hours are cut.
-
-
Outstanding and eye-opening
- By serine on 11-29-16
By: Matthew Desmond
-
Freezing Order
- A True Story of Russian Money Laundering, State-Sponsored Murder, and Surviving Vladimir Putin's Wrath
- By: Bill Browder
- Narrated by: Adam Grupper
- Length: 10 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When Browder’s young Russian lawyer, Sergei Magnitsky, was beaten to death in a Moscow jail in 2009, Browder cast aside his business career and made it his life’s mission to pursue justice for Sergei. One of the first steps of that mission was to uncover who had killed Sergei and profited from the $230 million corruption scheme that he had exposed. As Browder and his team tracked the money that flowed out of Russia—through the Baltics and Cyprus and on to Western Europe and the Americas—they discovered that Vladimir Putin himself was one of the beneficiaries of the crime.
-
-
Red Notice Part II —- The Empire Struck Out
- By R. Alembik on 04-16-22
By: Bill Browder
-
A Path Appears
- Transforming Lives, Creating Opportunity
- By: Sheryl WuDunn, Nicholas D. Kristof
- Narrated by: Oliva Wilde
- Length: 10 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A Path Appears is even more ambitious in scale: nothing less than a sweeping tapestry of people who are making the world a better place and a guide to the ways that we can do the same - whether with a donation of $5 or $5 million, with our time, by capitalizing on our skills as individuals, or by using the resources of our businesses.
-
-
Enlightening Read for Wise Givers (why & how)
- By Jan on 09-25-14
By: Sheryl WuDunn, and others
-
Half the Sky
- Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide
- By: Nicholas D. Kristof, Sheryl WuDunn
- Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell
- Length: 10 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
With Pulitzer Prize winners Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn as our guides, we undertake an odyssey through Africa and Asia to meet the extraordinary women struggling there, among them a Cambodian teenager sold into sex slavery and an Ethiopian woman who suffered devastating injuries in childbirth. Drawing on the breadth of their combined reporting experience, Kristof and WuDunn depict our world with anger, sadness, clarity, and, ultimately, hope. Deeply felt, pragmatic, and inspirational, Half the Sky is essential listening for every global citizen.
-
-
Life changing
- By TJH65 on 11-30-19
By: Nicholas D. Kristof, and others
-
The Dissent Channel
- American Diplomacy in a Dishonest Age
- By: Elizabeth Shackelford
- Narrated by: Suehyla El-Attar
- Length: 10 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 2017, Elizabeth Shackelford wrote a pointed resignation letter to her then boss, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson. She had watched as the State Department was gutted, and now she urged him to stem the bleeding by showing leadership and commitment to his diplomats and the country. If he couldn't do that, she said, "I humbly recommend that you follow me out the door." With that, she sat down to write her story and share an urgent message. In The Dissent Channel, former diplomat Elizabeth Shackelford shows that this is not a new problem.
-
-
Compelling Personal Story & Important Policy Book
- By John David on 06-25-20
-
Caste (Oprah's Book Club)
- The Origins of Our Discontents
- By: Isabel Wilkerson
- Narrated by: Robin Miles
- Length: 14 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this brilliant book, Isabel Wilkerson gives us a masterful portrait of an unseen phenomenon in America as she explores, through an immersive, deeply researched narrative and stories about real people, how America today and throughout its history has been shaped by a hidden caste system, a rigid hierarchy of human rankings.
-
-
Brilliant, articulate, highly listenable.
- By GM on 08-05-20
By: Isabel Wilkerson
-
Evicted
- Poverty and Profit in the American City
- By: Matthew Desmond
- Narrated by: Dion Graham
- Length: 11 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this brilliant, heartbreaking book, Matthew Desmond takes us into the poorest neighborhoods of Milwaukee to tell the story of eight families on the edge. Arleen is a single mother trying to raise her two sons on the $20 a month she has left after paying for their rundown apartment. Scott is a gentle nurse consumed by a heroin addiction. Lamar, a man with no legs and a neighborhood full of boys to look after, tries to work his way out of debt. Vanetta participates in a botched stickup after her hours are cut.
-
-
Outstanding and eye-opening
- By serine on 11-29-16
By: Matthew Desmond
-
Freezing Order
- A True Story of Russian Money Laundering, State-Sponsored Murder, and Surviving Vladimir Putin's Wrath
- By: Bill Browder
- Narrated by: Adam Grupper
- Length: 10 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When Browder’s young Russian lawyer, Sergei Magnitsky, was beaten to death in a Moscow jail in 2009, Browder cast aside his business career and made it his life’s mission to pursue justice for Sergei. One of the first steps of that mission was to uncover who had killed Sergei and profited from the $230 million corruption scheme that he had exposed. As Browder and his team tracked the money that flowed out of Russia—through the Baltics and Cyprus and on to Western Europe and the Americas—they discovered that Vladimir Putin himself was one of the beneficiaries of the crime.
-
-
Red Notice Part II —- The Empire Struck Out
- By R. Alembik on 04-16-22
By: Bill Browder
-
How the Other Half Learns
- Equality, Excellence, and the Battle Over School Choice
- By: Robert Pondiscio
- Narrated by: Robert Pondiscio
- Length: 11 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The promise of public education is excellence for all. But that promise has seldom been kept for low-income children of color in America. In How the Other Half Learns, teacher and education journalist Robert Pondiscio focuses on Success Academy, the network of controversial charter schools in New York City founded by Eva Moskowitz, who has created something unprecedented in American education: a way for large numbers of engaged and ambitious low-income families of color to get an education for their children that equals and even exceeds what wealthy families take for granted.
-
-
Read Aloud
- By M. Miller on 06-26-21
By: Robert Pondiscio
-
The Sum of Us
- What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can Prosper Together
- By: Heather McGhee
- Narrated by: Heather McGhee
- Length: 11 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Heather McGhee’s specialty is the American economy - and the mystery of why it so often fails the American public. From the financial crisis of 2008 to rising student debt to collapsing public infrastructure, she found a root problem: racism in our politics and policymaking. But not just in the most obvious indignities for people of color. Racism has costs for White people, too. It is the common denominator of our most vexing public problems, the core dysfunction of our democracy and constitutive of the spiritual and moral crises that grip us all.
-
-
Good book but Recording tech is poor. Glitches
- By Jeannepup on 02-25-21
By: Heather McGhee
-
Unthinkable
- Trauma, Truth, and the Trials of American Democracy
- By: Jamie Raskin
- Narrated by: Jamie Raskin
- Length: 15 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this searing memoir, Congressman Jamie Raskin tells the story of the 45 days at the start of 2021 that permanently changed his life - and his family’s - as he confronted the painful loss of his son to suicide, lived through the violent insurrection in our nation’s Capitol, and led the impeachment effort to hold President Trump accountable for inciting the political violence. Now for the first time, Congressman Raskin discusses this unimaginable convergence of personal and public trauma.
-
-
This book is a MASTERPIECE
- By Laura M. on 01-07-22
By: Jamie Raskin
-
The Premonition
- A Pandemic Story
- By: Michael Lewis
- Narrated by: Adenrele Ojo
- Length: 11 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
For those who could read between the lines, the censored news out of China was terrifying. But the president insisted there was nothing to worry about. Fortunately, we are still a nation of skeptics. Fortunately, there are those among us who study pandemics and are willing to look unflinchingly at worst-case scenarios. Michael Lewis’ taut and brilliant nonfiction thriller pits a band of medical visionaries against the wall of ignorance that was the official response of the Trump administration to the outbreak of COVID-19.
-
-
Why not Michael Lewis?
- By Brian on 05-04-21
By: Michael Lewis
-
Facing the Mountain
- A True Story of Japanese American Heroes in World War II
- By: Daniel James Brown
- Narrated by: Louis Ozawa
- Length: 17 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the days and months after Pearl Harbor, the lives of Japanese Americans across the continent and Hawaii were changed forever. In this unforgettable chronicle of war-time America and the battlefields of Europe, Daniel James Brown portrays the journey of Rudy Tokiwa, Fred Shiosaki, and Kats Miho, who volunteered for the 442nd Regimental Combat Team and were deployed to France, Germany, and Italy, where they were asked to do the near impossible. Brown also tells the story of these soldiers' parents, immigrants who were forced to submit to life in concentration camps on U.S. soil.
-
-
A Learning Experience
- By m3kbregar on 06-11-21
-
The War on Normal People
- By: Andrew Yang
- Narrated by: Andrew Yang
- Length: 6 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The shift toward automation is about to create a tsunami of unemployment. Not in the distant future - now. One recent estimate predicts 13 million American workers will lose their jobs within the next seven years - jobs that won't be replaced. In a future marked by restlessness and chronic unemployment, what will happen to American society? In The War on Normal People, Andrew Yang paints a dire portrait of the American economy. Rapidly advancing technologies like artificial intelligence, robotics, and automation software are making millions of Americans' livelihoods irrelevant.
-
-
Gave me hope!
- By Libby on 02-19-19
By: Andrew Yang
-
Hillbilly Elegy
- A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis
- By: J. D. Vance
- Narrated by: J. D. Vance
- Length: 6 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Hillbilly Elegy is a passionate and personal analysis of a culture in crisis - that of white working-class Americans. The decline of this group, a demographic of our country that has been slowly disintegrating over 40 years, has been reported on with growing frequency and alarm but has never before been written about as searingly from the inside. J. D. Vance tells the true story of what a social, regional, and class decline feels like when you were born with it hung around your neck.
-
-
A story about us, but not for us
- By Kevin Lee Patrick Jr on 11-19-19
By: J. D. Vance
-
The Least of Us
- By: Sam Quinones
- Narrated by: Tom Jordan
- Length: 12 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From the New York Times best-selling author of Dreamland, a searing follow-up that explores the terrifying next stages of the opioid epidemic and the quiet yet ardent stories of community repair.
-
-
Top tier journalism and 100% honest
- By Anonymous User on 11-24-21
By: Sam Quinones
-
Peril
- By: Bob Woodward, Robert Costa
- Narrated by: Robert Petkoff
- Length: 13 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The transition from President Donald J. Trump to President Joseph R. Biden Jr. stands as one of the most dangerous periods in American history. But as number one internationally best-selling author Bob Woodward and acclaimed reporter Robert Costa reveal for the first time, it was far more than just a domestic political crisis. Woodward and Costa interviewed more than 200 people at the center of the turmoil, resulting in more than 6,000 pages of transcripts - and a spellbinding and definitive portrait of a nation on the brink.
-
-
Clear Portrait of Chaotic Presidential Transition
- By Peter W. Kalnin on 09-21-21
By: Bob Woodward, and others
-
The Coddling of the American Mind
- How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas Are Setting Up a Generation for Failure
- By: Jonathan Haidt, Greg Lukianoff
- Narrated by: Jonathan Haidt
- Length: 10 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The culture of “safety” and its intolerance of opposing viewpoints has left many young people anxious and unprepared for adult life. Lukianoff and Haidt offer a comprehensive set of reforms that will strengthen young people and institutions, allowing us all to reap the benefits of diversity, including viewpoint diversity. This is a book for anyone who is confused by what’s happening on college campuses today, or has children, or is concerned about the growing inability of Americans to live and work and cooperate across party lines.
-
-
Only Praise
- By Amazon Customer on 12-02-18
By: Jonathan Haidt, and others
-
On Edge
- A Journey Through Anxiety
- By: Andrea Petersen
- Narrated by: Andrea Petersen
- Length: 8 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Andrea Petersen was first diagnosed with an anxiety disorder at the age of 20, but she later realized that she had been experiencing panic attacks since childhood. With time her symptoms multiplied. She agonized over every odd physical sensation. She developed fears of driving on highways, going to movie theaters, even licking envelopes. Although having a name for her condition was an enormous relief, it was only the beginning of a journey to understand and master it.
-
-
Brilliant
- By Margaret Cooper on 05-20-17
By: Andrea Petersen
-
Raising Them
- Our Adventure in Gender Creative Parenting
- By: Kyl Myers
- Narrated by: Kyl Myers
- Length: 7 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
As a first-time parent, Kyl Myers had one aspect dialed in from the start: not being beholden to the boy-girl binary, disparities, or stereotypes from the day a child is born. With no wish to eliminate gender but rather gender discrimination, Kyl and her husband, Brent, ventured off on a parenting path less traveled. Raising a confident, compassionate, and self-aware person was all that mattered.
-
-
Life Changing!
- By nancy gasga on 10-22-20
By: Kyl Myers
Publisher's Summary
The Pulitzer Prize-winning authors of the acclaimed, best-selling Half the Sky now issue a plea - deeply personal and told through the lives of real Americans - to address the crisis in working-class America, while focusing on solutions to mend a half-century of governmental failure.
With stark poignancy and political dispassion, Tightrope draws us deep into an "other America". The authors tell this story, in part, through the lives of some of the children with whom Kristof grew up in rural Yamhill, Oregon, an area that prospered for much of the 20th century but has been devastated in the last few decades as blue-collar jobs disappeared. About one-quarter of the children on Kristof's old school bus died in adulthood from drugs, alcohol, suicide, or reckless accidents. And while these particular stories unfolded in one corner of the country, they are representative of many places the authors write about, ranging from the Dakotas and Oklahoma to New York and Virginia.
But here, too, are stories about resurgence, among them: Annette Dove, who has devoted her life to helping the teenagers of Pine Bluff, Arkansas, as they navigate the chaotic reality of growing up poor; Daniel McDowell, of Baltimore, whose tale of opioid addiction and recovery suggests that there are viable ways to solve our nation's drug epidemic. Taken together, these accounts provide a picture of working-class families needlessly but profoundly damaged as a result of decades of policy mistakes. With their superb, nuanced reportage, Kristof and WuDunn have given us a book that is both riveting and impossible to ignore.
Critic Reviews
“A deft and uniquely credible exploration of rural America, and of other left-behind pockets of our country. One of the most important books I've read on the state of our disunion.” (Tara Westover, author of Educated)
“This is a must-read that will shake you to your core. It’s a Dante-esque tour of a forgotten America, told partly through the kids who rode on Kristof’s old school bus in rural Oregon. A quarter are now dead, and others are homeless, in prison or struggling with drugs. They made bad choices, but so did America, in ways that hold back our entire country. Tightrope shows how we can and must do better.” (Katie Couric)
“With compassion and empathy, [the authors] pull readers into the lives of families who have been in a downward spiral for several generations. . . . They bring a human face to issues such as drug addiction, incarceration, family dysfunction, and declining prospects for employment. Enlightening for all concerned Americans.” (Caren Nichter, Library Journal, starred review)
More from the same
Author
What listeners say about Tightrope
Average Customer RatingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- vic
- 02-03-20
Conservatives hate liberals will love
Important topic. Relate to story as one who escaped and saw hometown decline. Solid issues all will agree, but too much blame on conservatives diminishes the writers credibility as independent thinkers. Understandable as writer has to appeal to left as right will see ny times and ignore. A moderate will learn, identify cause and effect and easily toss the propaganda. But the real story is the hopeless divide between left and right. Proven successful actions to help will again be overshadowed by conjecture
7 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Amazon Customer
- 01-30-20
AMAZING
A must read! Everything that is holding is back is FIXABLE! Unless we start to address the issues that most people are making their money off of we will ALL fail! We are ALL a part of the problem.....but we can ALL fix the problems as well.... we ALL need to give a shit! We can’t do it alone!
6 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- AKB
- 02-06-20
An Important Book
Kristof and WuDunn have used case studies from their own experiences, supplemented with examples from hopeful initiatives in other parts of the country to write a salutary riposte to “Hillbilly Elegy” and a useful follow-up to “Janesville”. The questions they pursued were, why do some people fall out of the middle class into poverty? Why do some in poverty rise and others sink further into despair? They look at society’s core institutions—incarceration, health, education— and the policies that shape how citizens prosper or fail as a result.. At the end, they provide a useful list of things a reader can do immediately to foster hope and growth. We are fortunate to have their intelligent probing into areas many worry about. Don’t miss this one!
5 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Trisha
- 02-27-20
Infirmative
Great research with valid up to date information. love Kristiff's work and this expose with his wife is phenomenal.
4 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- mom10
- 02-23-20
Essential reading for every American
This is a passionate and extremely well researched work of the heart and moral fiber of two outstanding people. They grew up with some advantages, but without many others and haven’t forgotten their roots and those of many friends and neighbors who never made it out of poverty, dysfunctional families and the many travails of the poor and undereducated. They take a systemic look at the way we’ve made extremely poor policy and economic decisions in the US, leading to a heartbreaking waste of human lives and human capital. We’re only as strong as our weakest link and we as a country need to wake up to the relatively simple task of repairing those weak links! Read it now!!
4 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Nature Girl
- 02-10-20
An Important Contribution
Shocking data and a clear analysis frightened and saddened me.
Thanks to the hopeful inclusion of evidence-based proposals that are already working in other countries, I closed this book determined to be a part of the solution.
Kristoff and WuDunn are already highly regarded in their fields, and they should be recognized for the light they have cast into our darkest corners. This work is one of the most important contributions added to this critical national conversation.
4 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Courtney
- 02-02-20
Thorough and Thoughtful
Very well researched. Intelligently written. Thoughtfully presented. A clear look at the issues of poverty and the policies that have long betrayed the American people. Well done. Jennifer Garner is the perfect narrator.
4 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Richard Dine
- 01-29-20
Excellent solutions for the real issues we face,
Excellent description of and solutions needed to help the vulnerable among us, without the usual partisan attack rhetoric.
4 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- M.L.H.
- 11-01-20
Great story, bad narration
Why do narrators insist on using an overly emotional and irritating voice? Stories like this tell themselves and would be much more impactful if they were read straightforwardly and clearly without emotion. It’s irritating and ruins the story because the narration is distracting.
3 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Kieran
- 02-05-20
A much needed hopeful story!
Possibly the most important book of our time! Well written, informative, and finally a spark of hope in a troubled world.
3 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story

- Naalongo Acholi
- 05-17-22
Tight Rope the America We Must Care For
Excellent narrative and the life stories were both exhilarating and soul wrenching. I think it would be an ideal book to offer for both literature and Social Studies insights in high school.