Audiobooks by Martin W. Sandler

The Whydah: A Pirate Ship Feared, Wrecked, and Found

A 2018 YALSA Award for Excellence in Nonfiction for Young Adults Finalist The exciting true story of the captaincy, wreck, and discovery of the Whydah — the only pirate ship ever found — and the incredible mysteries it revealed. The 1650s to the 1730s marked the golden age of piracy, when fearsome pirates like Blackbeard ruled the waves, seeking not only treasure but also large and fast ships to carry it. The Whydah was just such a ship, built to ply the Triangular Trade route, which it did until one of the greediest pirates of all, Black Sam Bellamy, commandeered it. Filling the ship to capacity with treasure, Bellamy hoped to retire with his bounty — but in 1717 the ship sank in a storm off Cape Cod. For more than two hundred years, the wreck of the Whydah (and the riches that went down with it) eluded treasure seekers, until the ship was finally found in 1984 by marine archaeologists. The artifacts brought up from the ocean floor are priceless, both in value and in the picture they reveal of life in that much-mythologized era, changing much of what we know about pirates.

Martin W. Sandler (Author), Jeff Cummings (Narrator)

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Apollo 8: The Mission That Changed Everything

A nation in need of hope, the most powerful rocket ever launched, and the first three men to break the bounds of Earth: Apollo 8 was headed to the moon. In 1957, when the USSR launched Sputnik I, the first man-made satellite to orbit Earth, America’s rival in the Cold War claimed victory on a new frontier. The Space Race had begun, and the United States was losing. Closer to home, a decade of turbulence would soon have Americans reeling, with the year 1968 alone seeing the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy as well as many violent clashes between police and protesters. Americans desperately needed something good to believe in, and NASA’s mission to orbit Earth in Apollo 8 and test a lunar landing module was being planned for the end of the year. But with four months to go and the module behind schedule, the CIA discovered that the USSR was preparing to send its own mission around the moon — another crucial victory in the Space Race — and it was clearly time for a change of plan. Martin W. Sandler unfolds an incredible chapter in U.S. history: Apollo 8 wouldn’t just orbit Earth, it would take American astronauts to see the dark side of the moon.

Martin W. Sandler (Author), Scott Lange (Narrator)

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Iron Rails, Iron Men, and the Race to Link the Nation

Just after gold fever swept the West-a time when people walked, sailed, or rode horses for months on end to seek their fortune-the question of faster, safer, more reliable transportation between America's East and West Coasts was posed by lawmakers and national leaders. But with 1,800 miles of seemingly impenetrable mountains, searing deserts, and endless plains between the Missouri River and San Francisco, could a transcontinental railroad be built? There were believers and there were doubters, but it was the visionaries and the doers-Theodore Judah, Grenville Dodge, Charles Crocker, James Strobridge-who made it happen. They established two railroad companies, the Central Pacific that laid the tracks eastward and the Union Pacific that moved west, setting the stage for a race between iron men with iron wills unlike anything any country had ever seen. Heroes and scoundrels populate the story of the transcontinental railroad. But it was the tens of thousands of workers who, against all odds and working almost entirely by hand, built the great road. They labored for more than six years blasting the longest tunnels that had ever been constructed, building the highest bridges that had ever been created, battling enormous snow drifts and blistering heat. And when the nation was finally linked by two bands of steel, America was changed forever.

Martin W. Sandler (Author), Grover Gardner (Narrator)

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The Impossible Rescue

Whaling in the Arctic waters off Alaska's coast was as dangerous as it was lucrative in 1897. In that particular year, winter came early, bringing with it storms and ice packs that caught eight American whale ships and about three hundred sailors off guard. The ships were imprisoned in ice with no hope of escape. With limited provisions on board the ships that hadn't been crushed by the ice, there was little hope that these men could survive until warmer temperatures arrived at least ten months later. Martin Sandler tells the incredible true adventure story of three men who were ordered by President McKinley to carry out an overland rescue that covered 1,500 miles of treacherous Alaskan terrain in the dead of winter. Their mission was to drive two herds of reindeer the distance to feed the starving men. With their own survival in the balance, these men battled raging storms, killing cold, injured sled dogs, and their own will to continue to bring relief to the stranded whale men. Entries from the journals of two of the rescuers and photographs taken by the third key member of the unlikely expedition dramatically document every mile of their heroic, unprecedented journey.

Martin W. Sandler (Author), Malcolm Hillgartner (Narrator)

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