Patriotic Fire: Andrew Jackson and Jean Laffite at the Battle of New Orleans » (Unabridged, 8 CDs, 10 hours)

Winston Groom is the author of ten books, including the #1 "New York Times" bestseller "Gumpisms: The Wit and Wisdom of Forrest Gump." He also wrote the acclaimed Vietnam War novel "Better Times than These, " the prize-winning "As Summers Die, " the Civil War history "Shrouds of Glory, " and coauthored "Conversations with the Enemy, " which was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize. Groom's most recent works include "Such a Pretty, Pretty Girl" and "The Crimson Tide: An Illustrated History of Football at the University of Alabama." He lives in Point Clear, Alabama, with his wife and daughter and in the mountains of North Carolina.

Grover Gardner has recorded over 450 audiobooks and was named one of Audiofile Magazine's Golden Voices of 1999. He is a member of the Woolly Mammoth Theater Company, Resident Director at Everyman Theater in Baltimore and has received 5 Helen Hayes Award nominations of his work.

From the author of bestselling works of history and fiction comes a fast-paced retelling of one of the greatest battles fought on the North American continent and of Andrew Jackson and Jean Laffite, who joined forces to repel the British invasion of New Orleans in January 1815. Unabridged. 8 CDs.

The Washington Post - Adam Rothman

In Patriotic Fire , Winston Groom tells the astonishing story of how a ragtag corps of backwoodsmen, Louisiana creoles, refugees, pirates, Indians and free African Americans defeated a large, disciplined, experienced and professional British army at the Battle of New Orleans on Jan. 8, 1815 -- a day that Americans used to celebrate as a national resurrection. Groom, the author of Forrest Gump and several works of military history, has written a book that's neither original nor entirely reliable; it is pieced together from other historians' scholarship and occasionally dubious sources. Yet it is lively and interesting to read against the backdrop of current events.