Showing results by narrator "Ben Collins" in All Categories

The Stig gets his kit off and reveals how he came to be Top Gear's iconic racing driver and so much more – including what it's like to thrash an Aston Martin DBS, train for the Army and face the terror of Jeremy Clarkson's underwear… When the Black Stig disappeared off the end of an aircraft...

Former Top Gear Stig Ben Collins shares expert skills and wisdom refined over a 20-year career as one of the best drivers in the world - from Le Mans Series racing to NASCAR, piloting the Batmobile and dodging bullets with James Bond. Ben's philosophy of anticipation, smoothness and speed, honed over thousands of hours of elite-level performance, is really about economy of motion - which also gives you greater control, safety and fuel efficiency. How to Drive is about driving better, not faster.

Benjamin Grierson’s Union cavalry thrusting through Mississippi is one of the most well-known operations of the Civil War. Based upon years of research and presented in gripping, fast-paced prose, Timothy B. Smith’s The Real Horse Soldiers captures the high drama and tension of the 1863 horse soldiers in a modern, comprehensive, academic study.  

Aston Martin's first, wickedly fast models were forged at a time when Ferrari's premises at Maranello was nothing but a ploughed field. This book celebrates a century of innovators who kept the fire burning brightly for over a century, from the visionary pioneers Martin and Bamford to modern-day design guru Adrian Newey; from a glamorous web of pre- and post-war spies and racing drivers, to David Brown and the achingly beautiful DB models beloved of Bonds past and present.

The entire MacLeod clan is haunted by secrets, and young Bud MacLeod doesn't realize he carries the biggest secret of all. Growing up poor in Depression-era South Georgia is hard enough, but Bud is also cursed with a stutter and a birthmark that disfigures his face. His hateful father and amoral mother make life worse still, despite his brother's efforts to shield him. To survive, Bud must discover his strengths and confront the sins of his parents. First, though, he'll need to grasp his own truth: that he can't embrace his future until he comes to terms with his past.

Invalid teenager Leroy Wiley Gresham left a seven-volume diary spanning the years of secession and the Civil War. He was just 12 when he began, and he died at 17, just weeks after the war ended. LeRoy’s diary offers an inside look at a fateful journey that robbed an energetic and likeable young man of his youth and life. I Am Perhaps Dying adds considerably to the medical literature by increasing our understanding of how tuberculosis attacked a young body over time, how it was treated in the middle 19th century, and the effectiveness of those treatments.

A TIMES BOOK OF THE YEAR ‘For all those who believe in the politics of principle and hope this a wonderful reminder that they do not always lose. For all those who despair that politics can ever be inspiring again this is a must-read to shake you out of your misery’ Paddy Ashdown ‘There is...

Before performing stand-up comedy on The Tonight Show and writing on the staff of Politically Incorrect with Bill Maher, Mack Dryden survived on goat butt soup in a Moroccan jail, not knowing if he'd ever be released. He lived not only to tell the tale, but -amazingly - to inspire, instruct, and make us laugh out loud about it as well. Dryden currently lives in California with his wife and children.

After Hurricane Katrina laid bare the fragility and environmental peril of South Louisiana, author Ian McNulty set out on a series of daytrips to delve into the area's diverse cultural landscapes. He explored communities staked up and down the Mississippi River, nestled into the teeming bayous, braced along the edge of the Gulf, and planted out on the golden prairie stretching to the west. Louisiana Rambles is his richly evocative guide to those journeys.

During the Great Depression, the U.S. government illegally deported more than a million Mexican-American citizens to make room on the welfare rolls and alleviate unemployment for white Americans. Carlos Moreno is a young man who has known only hardship and poverty, chasing rumors of work across Texas during the 1920s. Pursued by a renegade Texas ranger who thinks he holds the key to a secret, Carlos takes refuge in “Little Mexico,” Houston’s colorful, boisterous barrio. He picks the worst possible time to fall in love.

On a hot rainy summer night in Nassau, the Bahamas, in 1943, someone murdered Sir Harry Oakes, one of the richest men in the world, as he slept. When police found him the next morning, there were four wounds to his skull. His corpse had been abused, covered ritualistically with feathers and set on fire. The murder was perverse, horrific, and jaded by anyone’s standards. A few evenings later in New York City, the phone rang in the home of Alan Hynd, identified in that era by the NY Times as America’s highest paid true crime reporter.

This volume focuses on the two important delaying actions conducted by mounted Union soldiers at Reed’s and Alexander’s bridges on the first day of Chickamauga. A cavalry brigade under Col. Robert H. G. Minty and Col. John T. Wilder’s legendary “Lightning Brigade” of mounted infantry made stout stands at a pair of chokepoints crossing Chickamauga Creek.

Far from home without a gun to defend himself with, Bob must find a way to get food and protect his possessions from would-be thieves in this post-apocalyptic world. Luckily, he has his fishing gear with him along with an inflatable kayak he brought on the airplane with him for recreation. Now his luggage has become his bug-out gear. Others want what he has, and he tries to flee the area to avoid them. Youth gangs take over the area where he resides.  

This prepper tale of suspenseful catastrophe tells the story of survival after a solar storm takes down the electrical grid in the dystopia of a post-apocalyptic Deep South. It is set in the aftermath of a world in which famine leads to mass chaos.

Ben Collins, the championship winning racing driver, Hollywood stuntman, best-selling author and the legend that is The Stig from Top Gear visits the Audible Studios to chat about his new book How To Drive.