University Press Audiobooks, LLC

10 Short Essays to Help You Through It
Edited by Winslow T. Wheeler

154 pages/426 minutes

Copyright © 2011 Center for Defense Information, World Security Institute
$10.00

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The Pentagon Labyrinth aims to help both newcomers and seasoned observers learn how to grapple with the problems of national defense. Intended for readers who are frustrated with the superficial nature of the debate on national security, this handbook takes advantage of the insights of ten unique professionals, each with decades of experience in the armed services, the Pentagon bureaucracy, Congress, the intelligence community, military history, journalism and other disciplines.

The short but provocative essays will help you to identify the decay moral, mental and physical in America s defenses; understand the various tribes that run bureaucratic life in the Pentagon; appreciate what too many defense journalists are not doing, but should; conduct first rate national security oversight instead of second rate theater; separate careerists from ethical professionals in senior military and civilian ranks; learn to critique strategies, distinguishing the useful from the agenda-driven; recognize the pervasive influence of money in defense decision-making; unravel the budget games the Pentagon and Congress love to play; understand how to sort good weapons from bad and avoid high cost failures, and; reform the failed defense procurement system without changing a single law. The handbook ends with lists of contacts, readings and Web sites carefully selected to facilitate further understanding of the above, and more. 

The Double Helix
A Personal Account of the Discovery
of the Structure of DNA
by James D. Watson 

81 pages/240 minutes 

Copyright © 1968 James D. Watson
℗ 2011 University Press Audiobooks, LLC
$10.00

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First published in 1968, this classic story of the discovery of DNA has never been released as an audiobook.  Watson holds nothing back when revealing the petty sniping and backbiting among his colleagues, while acknowledging that he himself was a willing participant in the melodrama. In particular, Watson reveals his mixed feelings about his famous colleague in discovery, Francis Crick, who many thought of as an arrogant man who talked too much, and whose brilliance was appreciated by few. This is the joy of The Double Helix--instead of a chronicle of stainless-steel heroes toiling away in their sparkling labs, Watson's chronicle gives readers an idea of what living science is like, warts and all. The Double Helix is a startling window into the scientific method, full of insight and wit, and packed with the kind of science anecdotes that are told and retold in the halls of universities and laboratories everywhere. It's the stuff of legends.