Get adventurous with these listens for fans of Indiana Jones

How far would you be willing to go to forever change the course of history, paleontology, and religion? In the 1870s, Edwin Drinker Cope and Othniel Charles Marsh, two real-life paleontologists, engaged in all sorts of unsavory activities to reach such an end. Dragon Teeth is a fictionalized account of their rivalry from the beloved, late speculative fiction writer Michael Crichton. If you're looking for adventure books like Indiana Jones, this one, which follows hapless Yale student William Johnson into the Old West, is the perfect listen.

Crichton's book highlights the perils of Victorian paleontology, but what of the field as it exists today? 2021's Ancient Bones is the exhilarating story of how Madeleine Böhme discovered a 12-million-year-old skeleton that seemed to contradict all previously accepted theories of how humanity developed. What does this new skeleton mean for our image of ourselves? And how do you go about solving a mystery when the clues are literally ancient history?

If you think that archaeologists are the only academics who have risked their lives to preserve historic treasures, think again! After spending decades traversing Mali in search of ancient Islamic manuscripts, Abdel Kader Haidara had amassed a unique collection for a government library. But in 2012, with terrorists threatening to destroy the irreplaceable tomes, Haidara and his colleagues risked everything to hide their life's work from ruthless men who wanted nothing more than to see history burn. This listen tells the incredible story of how a humble archivist came to lead one of the world's most brazen band of smugglers.

The thrill of discovery underpins every Indiana Jones adventure. It's also a key feature in The Lost City of the Monkey God, a nonfiction expeditionary tale following a group of modern-day archaeologists on a quest to locate a quasi-mythical city deep in the Honduran rainforest. Using the latest technology while following in the footsteps of other explorers, the archaeologists, joined by bestselling author Doug Preston, face down an inhospitable, possibly deadly environment as they venture to bring a long-buried truth to light.

The Indiana Jones films are skillful at blending fact with fiction to create a recognizable but far more interesting version of our world. The Historian pulls off the same feat. Set in the 1970s, this work of fiction follows a young woman as she makes terrifying discoveries about her father's past and her mother's mysterious fate. Like her father before her, she now has reason to believe that Dracula was not simply a figment based on the notorious Vlad the Impaler. He may very well be a real person—and, based on chilling evidence, he's still out there.

In 1925, celebrated explorer Percy Fawcett plunged into the Amazon, convinced that the lost civilization known as "Z" could be found within. Neither he nor anyone in his party returned. Decades later, writer David Grann decided to pick up where Fawcett left off, determined to find out what happened to him and to prove once and for all that Z really exists. A meticulously researched work of nonfiction, The Lost City of Z is just as gripping as any of great fictional saga.

The first in a series of archeological-themed mysteries, Crocodile on the Sandbank invites you to join an indomitable Victorian-era wife, mother, and Egyptologist as she travels the world in search of artifacts and adventure. Amelia Peabody gets more than she bargained for after rescuing a jilted woman who seems to be a regular magnet for trouble. Who is trying to hurt young Evelyn Barton-Forbes, and does it have anything to do with the cursed mummy they encountered by the Nile?

In The Last Crusade, Indy and his dad risk everything in pursuit of the Holy Grail. In Labyrinth, the first in the Languedoc trilogy by Kate Mosse, a 13th-century father gifts his teenage daughter a book that talks about the Grail and, alongside it, a secret labyrinth. Centuries later, a woman volunteering at an archaeological dig stumbles across a cave with the symbol of that very same, mysterious labyrinth inside.

As much as we all love Indy, the morality of what he does—stealing artifacts for museums to profit off of—is, well, debatable at best. Portrait of a Thief flips the script in an intriguing way. Harvard art student Will Chen's perfect life is upended when he agrees to lead a gang of thieves with one goal in mind—to steal back Chinese artifacts looted by the West and now housed in prestigious museums across Europe.

For a nonfiction look at the ethics of archaeology, Finder's Keepers is unbeatable. Narrated by author Craig Childs, it forces listeners to think more deeply than ever before about who gets to lay claim to the past, and what we owe to both the people who came before us and the living people whose pasts we are benefiting from. Through interviews and personal experiences, Childs illustrates how Indy's world—and the world of real archaeologists—can quickly become an ethical minefield.

Here's another archeology-centered romantic adventure, arriving in December. Raiders of the Lost Heart follows heated rivals Corrie and Ford (yes, Ford!), who are compelled to team up on a dig in Mexico. Things get more complicated as thieves and smugglers close in on the site, and romance closes in on the two adversaries. The delicious pun in the title says it all—this is a must-listen for anyone with a passion for Indiana Jones.