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Literary

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Cariola

Cariola Chambersburg, PA USA Member Since 2005

malfi

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  • "Very Good (but why all the secr..."

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    Little Bee is a story both sad and hopeful, horrific and funny. It's told in the voices of two women: Little Bee, a 16-year old from Nigeria who, after two years, finds herself "unofficially" discharged from an immigration detention center in southern England; and Sarah O'Rourke, magazine editor, mother, reporter's wife. Among Little Bee's few belongings are Andrew O'Rourke's driver's license and business card. Not knowing anyone in the UK, she decides to head for the address on the driver's license. And thus begins a journey for both women.

    If you've seen Little Bee in print, you know that the dust jacket warns that there are many surprises to come, that the publisher won't spoil them by telling you much, and that you shouldn't tell anyone else either. I didn't see what all the secrecy was about, beyond a marketing ploy. The book is no more "surprising" than many others. Still, Cleave has a wonderfully lyrical style, especially in the character of Little Bee.

    As to the reader, the unvarying cheerfulness apparently intended to represent Little Bee's accent did get a bit monotonous and annoying at times. While that lilting African accent is charming, I doubt that Africans use exactly the same tone and pacing for every emotion they verbally express. Still, overall, this was an engaging book with some important messages.

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    Little Bee: A Novel

    • UNABRIDGED (10 hrs and 44 mins)
    • By Chris Cleave
    • Narrated By Anne Flosnik
    • Whispersync for Voice-ready
    Overall
    (1076)
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    (398)
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    (399)

    British couple Andrew and Sarah O'Rourke, vacationing on a Nigerian beach in a last-ditch effort to save their faltering marriage, come across Little Bee and her sister, Nigerian refugees fleeing from machete-wielding soldiers intent on clearing the beach. The horrific confrontation that follows changes the lives of everyone involved in unimaginable ways.

    Cariola says: "Very Good (but why all the secrecy?)"
  • "Definitely deserved the Booker Prize"

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    The White Tiger is in the form of a first-person narrative written in a letter to the Chinese premier. The narrator (known as The White Tiger) relates how he rose from being a poor, lower caste Indian to the driver for a wealthy family, from a wanted murderer to a Bangalore entrepreneur. Full of insights into life in modern-day India, his story is sad, funny, witty, shocking--you name it. All told in a fascinating voice. John Lee was an extraordinary reader.

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    The White Tiger: A Novel

    • UNABRIDGED (8 hrs and 5 mins)
    • By Aravind Adiga
    • Narrated By John Lee
    • Whispersync for Voice-ready
    Overall
    (1517)
    Performance
    (417)
    Story
    (413)

    Balram Halwai is a complicated man. Servant. Philosopher. Entrepreneur. Murderer. Balram tells us the terrible and transfixing story of how he came to be a success in life - having nothing but his own wits to help him along. Through Balram's eyes, we see India as we've never seen it before: the cockroaches and the call centers, the prostitutes and the worshippers, the water buffalo and, trapped in so many kinds of cages that escape is (almost) impossible, the white tiger.

    With a charisma as undeniable as it is unexpected, Balram teaches us that religion doesn't create morality and money doesn't solve every problem.

    Mark P. Furlong says: "Entertaining, thought-provoking, darkly funny"
  • "Aging Gracefully"

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    Maybe it's because I'm getting older, but I really loved this book. After the death of her husband, 88-year old Lady Slane shocks her children by announcing that she plans to leave the family estate and rent a house in Hampstead Heath--a house that holds many fond memories of her younger days. Even more shocking, she dictates that none of her children, grandchildren, or great-grandchildren may visit without an express appointment (and those are given infrequently). As a woman who has spent her entire life pleasing others and doing what they expected of her, she finally decides to live as pleases herself. She recalls her early dreams of becoming a painter, and how those dreams were squelched by a proposal that everyone else thought was a brilliant triumph--even though the 18-year old Deborah was not convinced that she was really in love or that she was ready to give up her own independence and aspirations. Looking back on her life, she recalls moments of happiness, moments when she did indeed love (or at least appreciate) her husband and felt fleeting moments of affection for the children who, for the most part, turned out to be disappointments. But as she moves towards death, Lady Slane decides that, while there is still a little time left, she need please no one but herself.

    Lately, I've been thinking more and more about the time wasted in the past and the time that I have remaining to make something of my life, and, in that regard, this novel really touched home. The novel is brilliantly read by Wendy Hiller, who played Lady Slane in the TV adaptation. It's a quiet, contemplative book, but one well worth one's time. Vita Sackville-West gives us a portrait of aging that goes far beyond the mourning the loss of youth and beauty to ask significant questions about selfhood and the meaning of life itself.

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    All Passion Spent

    • UNABRIDGED (7 hrs and 2 mins)
    • By Vita Sackville-West
    • Narrated By Wendy Hiller
    Overall
    (29)
    Performance
    (22)
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    (22)

    In 1860, as an unmarried girl of 17, Lady Slane nurtures a secret, burning ambition – to become an artist. She becomes, instead, the wife of a great statesman, Henry, the first Earl of Slane, and the mother of six children. Seventy years later, released by widowhood, she abandons the family home in Elm Park Gardens much to the dismay of her pompous sons and daughters.

    Deborah says: "Charming Book about Aging"
  1. Little Bee: A Novel
  2. The White Tiger: A Novel
  3. All Passion Spent
  4. .

A Peek at Ryan's Bookshelf

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Somerville, MA, United States 185 REVIEWS / 251 ratings Member Since 2005 245 Followers / Following 11
 
Ryan's greatest hits:
  • The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay

    "Favorite Chabon novel so far, despite “meh” ending"

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    I’ve read a couple of Michael Chabon’s other books and have found him to be a writer I like a lot, but have never been totally enamored with. His prose reminds me of a certain type I sometimes meet at parties in the city: stylish, insightful, full of savoir faire, but trying just a little too hard to impress, and maybe not as original as he wants to be.

    Still, if there was ever a novel that plays to an author’s descriptive flair and love for homage, it would be the Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay. Through mannered but flip character study, Chabon hones in on the energies passing through pre-war New York City, as experienced by two young artists intent on making their mark in the dawning Golden Era of Comic Books, and later, the doldrums of 1950s suburbia and a stagnating industry. One of his protagonists, Joe Kavalier, is a young Jew from Czechoslovakia, trained in the arts of escape (think Harry Houdini), the other, Sammy Klayman, is a young Jew from Brooklyn, with aspirations of being a novelist. One worries about his family back in Europe, the other struggles with his sexuality, alternating between cautious acceptance and the socially-prescribed denial of the era. As with other Chabon novels, there are broad “Jewish” themes of exile, suffering, and redemption, which make an interesting subtext.

    To me, the joy of this novel is the inventiveness with which Chabon has his heroes playing out their psyches and backstories on the nine-paneled page, as they struggle with guilt, a sense of identity, love, friendship, and failure. His ability to evoke the imagery of classic comics in prose is impressive, and reminds us of the ineffable power that visuals hold over both creator and devotee, even hampered by the stilted “sock! bam! pow!” conventions of the early days. A less graceful writer might have stamped out an empty nostalgia trip, but Chabon, in celebrating the earnest constructive spirit of young men in a new field of expression, crafts an ecstatic secret history of one rapidly evolving. It’s not often that words are worth a thousand pictures.

    Well, for the first third of the book, anyway. Once the young duo achieves its meteoric rise and begins settling into comfortable lives of regular paychecks and predictable comforts, the novel begins to sag and its character studies to feel a little superficial and plodding (but impeccably written). Luckily, an engaging interlude involving a little known-theater of World War Two shakes things up for a while at the two-thirds mark (though it’s largely superfluous to the main story, and felt like Chabon just needed the writerly equivalent of an excuse to get out of the building and run around for a bit). After that, the story returns to 1950s suburbia, a dull marriage, a McCarthy-esque harassment of comic book writers, and a resolution that I found surprisingly banal. Does Chabon just not know how to end books well? I had a similar problem with the Yiddish Policemen’s Union.

    Yet, as with that book, I liked the imagination and joyous construction of a place in time on display in the first half of The Amazing Adventures so much, I still think it’s worth your consideration. The audiobook might even be an improvement over the print version, with Joe and Sammy’s distinct accents brought to life, along with those of several other characters. Probably my favorite of Michael Chabon’s novels thus far.

  • Hard-boiled Wonderland and the End of the World

    "Grown-up Hiyao Miyazaki"

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    I really enjoyed this book, though, as you can tell from other reviews online, it's not a novel for every taste. Let me put it this way: if you like the films of Hiyao Miyazaki (Spirited Away, Howl's Moving Castle, Princess Mononoke), and relish a few dashes of metaphysics, literary/movie/music references, and existentialism, then Murakami's mix of fantasy, surreality, and realism might speak to you. If not, you'll probably be frustrated with the listening/reading experience. (If you don't know Hiyao Miyazaki, then get ye to Netflix first, then come back here.)

    On the surface, the book has two intertwining stories. One is about a 30-something loner guy with slacker tendencies and cyberpunkish skills who lives in Tokyo and takes a job with an eccentric scientist, a choice which soon sets off a cascade of strange consequences. This is interleaved with a second story, in which a man with no memory finds himself trapped in a fantastical, dreamlike town, trying to make sense of its fable-like inhabitants and his reasons for being there. As the novel progresses, the two stories begin to intersect. While "magic realism" is a genre that can really fly off the rails sometimes (see Mark Helprin's A Winter's Tale), Murakami keeps his story readable and grounded in a coherent flow of events.

    This is one of those books where (in my opinion), you'll enjoy it more if you don't expect the author’s stew of ideas and imagery to make perfect sense or try to analyze his science and philosophy too much. Yes, there are a few logic holes and not everything in the surface-level plot gets resolved in an obvious way. Rather, this is a novel to read for its oddball characters, the vision of the writing, the strange-but-fitting twists and turns of the story, the humorous juxtaposition of the surreal and the everyday, and the existential questions under its fanciful trappings. If you had only 36 hours to live, what would you do with the time? I found the way Murakami chose to answer this question unexpectedly moving. Even with the end of the world coming, you might still have to do laundry...

    I enjoyed the narration and voice-acting in the audiobook. The main character's voice reminded me of Spike from Cowboy Bebop, which (in my world) was a bonus.

  • The Round House: A Novel

    "Louise Erdrich hits one out of the park"

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    For me, this novel was about as close to perfect as contemporary fiction gets. It's beautifully written, well-voiced, full of memorable characters, and a rich snapshot of life on a North Dakota Indian reservation in the late 1980s. The narrator, Joe, is a grown man remembering a few life-shaping months of his early teens. The book begins with Joe and his father, a reservation judge, coming upon Joe's mother, who has just been assaulted and raped. The situation soon grows in complexity -- Geraldine takes to her bed and can't (or won't) recall who attacked her, and because the attack occurred somewhere close to the reservation boundary, it's unclear whose legal jurisdiction it falls into.

    With his mother in legal and emotional limbo, and the police seemingly disinterested, the young Joe takes it on himself to solve the crime, though he proceeds in a typically fumbling, distractible adolescent manner. What follows is a story that's a lot of things at once. It's a mystery, a coming-of-age story, a drama of family and best friends, and a reflection on the history of a people struggling to maintain control of their own laws and culture within the larger framework of American society and its systems. Through Joe's young eyes, we come to grasp the weight of a complex past on the present day. I was in awe of the subtle purity with which Erdrich makes these separate pieces connect, ultimately bringing her protagonist towards terms with his reality and his identity.

    As I said, the characters are wonderful. There's Joe's soft-spoken, intelligent father, Bazil. There's Joe's best friend, Cappy, the boy we all remember from adolescence who seemed to be a step ahead of us in confidence and experience, if not always wisdom. There's an ex-Marine priest, who has a singularly painful reason for choosing his vocation. There's an old man whose nocturnal tales confuse (or perhaps not) real events and tribal mythology. There's one of the dirtiest-minded old grandmas I've ever encountered in fiction. Erdrich's craft as a writer is such that I felt that I knew these people well and could picture their backstories and relationships within a couple pages of meeting them. (If I have a complaint at all, it's that the villain's pretty one-dimensional, but that wasn’t a big issue for me.)

    The central, recurring theme in The Round House is that of overlapping worlds. I knew I was in love with the writing a few chapters in, when Joe explains Star Trek: the Next Generation from the perspective of reservation boys. In this personal way, Erdrich explores several other blurred boundaries, such as that between the Indian world and the white world, the way both Christian and native beliefs have personal meaning, the difficult crossing between childhood and the adult world, and the conflict between personal justice and the importance of rational, impartial law. I loved the way she brought these separate threads together in the raw, but beautifully symbolic final chapters. This is the novel that many aspiring writers attend MFA programs in search of, but few pull off.

    To me, Gary Farmer did a good job with the audiobook narration, though some listeners might find the halting intonation of his Native American accent a little reminiscent of William Shatner. The only other book of Erdrich's I've read before was A Plague of Doves; while it was good, this is the one to start with.

  • The Gone-Away World

    "Exhaustively witty, but unsatisfying"

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    The Goneaway World is a novel that aspires to be a whole bunch of things at once. It's a breathless adventure story, with pirates, ninjas, mad scientists, and covert military units. It's a coming-of-age story about a young man and his best friend. It's a sardonic satire, criticizing the excesses of capitalism and militarism in a Kurt Vonnegut-like style. It's a post-apocalypse story. It's an absurd, Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy-style romp, complete with a crack unit of mimes. It's a metaphysical tale about how "real" the things in our mind are.

    You'll either find this book delightfully witty or self-indulgent and exhausting. I leaned a little more in the latter direction. On one hand, I admired how clever and inventive Harkaway is, his effortless talent at satirizing human foibles and turning even the most mundane scenario into a madcap adventure (or the most exotic into something perfectly routine). On the other hand, the story careers around the map so wildly, I found it hard to care about any of the characters or what was happening. Even Gonzo, whom the protagonist is obsessed with (for reasons that become apparent later), is about as interesting as a video game character's user manual bio -- e.g. "Gonzo: a manly, cool-under-pressure guy with Polish parents and a stubborn streak." I eventually got bored with the story and all the tone switches, and stopped listening before I got to the final chapters, even though I'm sure there was an exceedingly clever ninja/pirate/mercenary/corporate honcho/mime battle I missed out on.

    Don't get me wrong, I think Nick Harkaway is a smart guy with an impressive imagination. But he really needed the firm hand of a good editor here, who might have stopped him from running with arms waving after every butterfly that flitted past, and gotten him to have focused more on the novel as a whole.

    Still, other readers might enjoy the unrestrained zaniness more than I did. Doctor Who or Terry Pratchett fans, take note. Lots of dry British humor here.

Robert

Robert Yamhill, OR, United States 11-08-12

Hey Audible, don't raise prices and I promise to buy lots more books.

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  • "A book about books for romantics."

    13 of 14 helpful votes

    “Well, this is a story about books."

    “About books?"

    “About accursed books, about a man who wrote them, about a character who broke out of the pages of a novel so that he could burn it, about a betrayal and a lost friendship. It's a story of love, of hatred, and of the dreams that live in the shadow of the wind."

    “You talk like the jacket blurb of a Victorian novel, Daniel."

    “That's probably because I work in a bookshop and I've seen too many. But this is a true story.”
    ― Carlos Ruiz Zafón, The Shadow of the Wind

    My friend who recommended this book to me said that this was not a book for everyone. That rascal, now she tells me after I purchased and started reading it. But that is kind of the thing, isn’t it? As that author says, “Books are mirrors: you only see in them what you already have inside you.” Oh, that’s all wrong here. That’s not why this book is not for everyone.

    I liked this book a lot but I do not think that it is perfect. The story reminded me of Kate Morton’s Forgotten Garden. Both books are multifaceted. Both are books about books. Both books contain stories about multiple characters whose lives and stories intersect. Both books are mysteries and gothic in style. The setting for this one is Barcelona, Spain and takes place mostly around the first half of the 20th century. The language, tone and manner of expression is very Spanish. Originally written in Spanish, some have commented that much of the prose might have suffered in translation. While I cannot confirm that and while some of the phrasing did seem a bit clumsy in places, by and large, the prose worked just fine for me. I do think, however, that parts could have benefited from improved editing.

    The book is about cruelty and great kindness, romance and heroism. The story’s many aspects of love stood out for me. These were familiar, platonic and intimate in nature. Much of the love is of the unrequited kind and this was the case for many of the characters. Much of the frustration, however, is resolved in the end, one way or another. Probably more ladies than gents are drawn to romantic novels. However, most of the loves in this story are described from the male perspective. Perhaps there is something here that can be gleaned and appreciated by both genders.

    The narration in my Audible selection is outstanding but again the production leaves something to be desired. The author wrote the solo piano pieces that pepper the story. I like pepper but too much of the spice can spoil a meal. This was the case in a few places of the story. The music would crescendo and almost drown out the narration. Otherwise, the music was probably a nice touch especially for a book of this kind.

    Can I recommend this book to everyone? Probably not but, like my friend, I cannot say exactly why. It kept my attention most of the way through and I thoroughly enjoyed it. It was well written but I think it was the wonderful narration that made it really good for me.

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    The Shadow of the Wind

    • UNABRIDGED (18 hrs and 10 mins)
    • By Carlos Ruiz Zafon
    • Narrated By Jonathan Davis
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    Barcelona, 1945: Just after the war, a great world city lies in shadow, nursing its wounds, and a boy named Daniel awakes on his 11th birthday to find that he can no longer remember his mother's face. To console his only child, Daniel's widowed father, an antiquarian book dealer, initiates him into the secret of the Cemetery of Forgotten Books, a library tended by Barcelona's guild of rare-book dealers as a repository for books forgotten by the world, waiting for someone who will care about them again.

    Rebecca says: "Have the book handy"

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    Joseph says: "A storyteller's story"
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    A moving coming-of-age story set in the 1900s, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn follows the lives of 11-year-old Francie Nolan, her younger brother Neely, and their parents, Irish immigrants who have settled in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn. Johnny Nolan is as loving and fanciful as they come, but he is also often drunk and out of work, unable to find his place in the land of opportunity.

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    The setting is the Georgia wilderness, where the state's most remote white-water river awaits. In the thundering froth of that river, in its echoing stone canyons, four men on a canoe trip discover a freedom and exhilaration beyond compare. And then, in a moment of horror, the adventure turns into a struggle for survival as one man becomes a human hunter who is offered his own harrowing deliverance.

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    Play And the Mountains Echoed

    And the Mountains Echoed

    • UNABRIDGED (14 hrs and 1 min)
    • By Khaled Hosseini
    • Narrated By Khaled Hosseini, Navid Negahban, Shohreh Aghdashloo
    • Whispersync for Voice-ready
    Overall
    (2)
    Performance
    (1)
    Story
    (0)

    Khaled Hosseini, the number-one New York Times best-selling author of The Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns, has written a new novel about how we love, how we take care of one another, and how the choices we make resonate through generations.

  • Orphan Train: A Novel
    Play Orphan Train: A Novel

    Orphan Train: A Novel

    • UNABRIDGED (8 hrs and 21 mins)
    • By Christina Baker Kline
    • Narrated By Jessica Almasy, Suzanne Toren
    • Whispersync for Voice-ready
    Overall
    (223)
    Performance
    (198)
    Story
    (197)

    Penobscot Indian Molly Ayer is close to "aging out" out of the foster care system. A community-service position helping an elderly woman clean out her home is the only thing keeping Molly out of juvie and worse.... As she helps Vivian sort through her possessions and memories, Molly learns that she and Vivian aren’t as different as they seem to be. A young Irish immigrant orphaned in New York City, Vivian was put on a train to the Midwest with hundreds of other children whose destinies would be determined by luck and chance.

    Kathi says: "Moving story of sharing and transformation."
  • Life After Life: A Novel
    Play Life After Life: A Novel

    Life After Life: A Novel

    • UNABRIDGED (15 hrs and 34 mins)
    • By Kate Atkinson
    • Narrated By Fenella Woolgar
    • Whispersync for Voice-ready
    Overall
    (178)
    Performance
    (161)
    Story
    (155)

    On a cold and snowy night in 1910, Ursula Todd is born to an English banker and his wife. She dies before she can draw her first breath. On that same cold and snowy night, Ursula Todd is born, lets out a lusty wail, and embarks upon a life that will be, to say the least, unusual. For as she grows, she also dies, repeatedly, in a variety of ways, while the young century marches on towards its second cataclysmic world war.

    Diane says: "Life after life after life after life after life.."
  • Beautiful Ruins
    Play Beautiful Ruins

    Beautiful Ruins

    • UNABRIDGED (12 hrs and 53 mins)
    • By Jess Walter
    • Narrated By Edoardo Ballerini
    • Whispersync for Voice-ready
    Overall
    (3788)
    Performance
    (3260)
    Story
    (3240)

    The story begins in 1962. On a rocky patch of the sun-drenched Italian coastline, a young innkeeper, chest-deep in daydreams, looks out over the incandescent waters of the Ligurian Sea and spies an apparition: a tall, thin woman, a vision in white, approaching him on a boat. She is an actress, he soon learns, an American starlet, and she is dying. And the story begins again today, half a world away, when an elderly Italian man shows up on a movie studio's back lot - searching for the mysterious woman he last saw at his hotel decades earlier.

    Cindy says: "Best Mistake I Ever Made On Audible..."
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  • Cloud Atlas
    Play Cloud Atlas

    Cloud Atlas

    • UNABRIDGED (19 hrs and 33 mins)
    • By David Mitchell
    • Narrated By Scott Brick, Cassandra Campbell, Kim Mai Guest, and others
    Overall
    (2273)
    Performance
    (1557)
    Story
    (1552)

    A reluctant voyager crossing the Pacific in 1850; a disinherited composer blagging a precarious livelihood in between-the-wars Belgium; a high-minded journalist in Governor Reagan's California; a vanity publisher fleeing his gangland creditors; a genetically modified "dinery server" on death-row; and Zachry, a young Pacific Islander witnessing the nightfall of science and civilisation: the narrators of Cloud Atlas hear each other's echoes down the corridor of history.

    Elizabeth says: "thoroughly enjoyed"
  • The Interestings
    Play The Interestings

    The Interestings

    • UNABRIDGED (15 hrs and 41 mins)
    • By Meg Wolitzer
    • Narrated By Jen Tullock
    • Whispersync for Voice-ready
    Overall
    (71)
    Performance
    (58)
    Story
    (58)

    The summer that Nixon resigns, six teenagers at a summer camp for the arts become inseparable. Decades later the bond remains powerful, but so much else has changed. In The Interestings, Wolitzer follows these characters from the height of youth through middle age, as their talents, fortunes, and degrees of satisfaction diverge. The kind of creativity that is rewarded at age 15 is not always enough to propel someone through life at age 30; not everyone can sustain, in adulthood, what seemed so special in adolescence.

    Tango says: "Needs a better title, but a good read (listen)"
  • Atlas Shrugged
    Play Atlas Shrugged

    Atlas Shrugged

    • UNABRIDGED (63 hrs)
    • By Ayn Rand
    • Narrated By Scott Brick
    Overall
    (3998)
    Performance
    (2032)
    Story
    (2027)

    In a scrap heap within an abandoned factory, the greatest invention in history lies dormant and unused. By what fatal error of judgment has its value gone unrecognized, its brilliant inventor punished rather than rewarded for his efforts? In defense of those greatest of human qualities that have made civilization possible, one man sets out to show what would happen to the world if all the heroes of innovation and industry went on strike.

    Riyad Mammadov says: "Propaganda"
  • The Woman Upstairs
    Play The Woman Upstairs

    The Woman Upstairs

    • UNABRIDGED (11 hrs and 1 min)
    • By Claire Messud
    • Narrated By Cassandra Campbell
    • Whispersync for Voice-ready
    Overall
    (18)
    Performance
    (16)
    Story
    (16)

    Nora Eldridge, a 37-year-old elementary school teacher in Cambridge, Massachusetts, who long ago abandoned her ambition to be a successful artist, has become the "woman upstairs", a reliable friend and tidy neighbor always on the fringe of others' achievements. Then into her classroom walks Reza Shahid, a child who enchants as if from a fairy tale. He and his parents - dashing Skandar, a Lebanese scholar and professor at the École Normale Supérleure; and Sirena, an effortlessly glamorous Italian artist - have come to Boston for Skandar to take up a fellowship at Harvard.

    Bonny says: "The woman should have been relegated to the cellar"
  •  
  • The Burgess Boys: A Novel
    Play The Burgess Boys: A Novel

    The Burgess Boys: A Novel

    • UNABRIDGED (13 hrs and 29 mins)
    • By Elizabeth Strout
    • Narrated By Cassandra Campbell
    • Whispersync for Voice-ready
    Overall
    (109)
    Performance
    (91)
    Story
    (86)

    Haunted by the freak accident that killed their father when they were children, Jim and Bob Burgess escaped from their Maine hometown of Shirley Falls for New York City as soon as they possibly could. Jim, a sleek, successful corporate lawyer, has belittled his bighearted brother their whole lives, and Bob, a Legal Aid attorney who idolizes Jim, has always taken it in stride. But their long-standing dynamic is upended when their sister, Susan - the Burgess sibling who stayed behind - urgently calls them home.

    Susianna says: "Some Secrets Shouldn't be Kept"
  • The Secret Keeper
    Play The Secret Keeper

    The Secret Keeper

    • UNABRIDGED (19 hrs and 54 mins)
    • By Kate Morton
    • Narrated By Caroline Lee
    • Whispersync for Voice-ready
    Overall
    (1471)
    Performance
    (1227)
    Story
    (1238)

    England, 1959: Laurel Nicolson is 16 years old, dreaming alone in her childhood tree house during a family celebration at their home, Green Acres Farm. She spies a stranger coming up the long road to the farm and then observes her mother, Dorothy, speaking to him. And then she witnesses a crime.

    Maria says: "Kate Morton (and Caroline Lee) does it again!"
  • Fifth Business: The Deptford Trilogy, Book 1
    Play Fifth Business: The Deptford Trilogy, Book 1

    Fifth Business: The Deptford Trilogy, Book 1

    • UNABRIDGED (10 hrs and 2 mins)
    • By Robertson Davies
    • Narrated By Marc Vietor
    Overall
    (75)
    Performance
    (67)
    Story
    (65)

    This first novel in The Deptford Trilogy introduces Ramsay, a man who returns from World War I decorated with the Victoria Cross but who is destined to be caught in a no man's land where memory, history, and myth collide. As we hear Ramsey tell his story, we begin to realize that, from childhood, he has influenced those around him in a perhaps mystical, perhaps pernicious way.

    Vinity says: "Been waiting for this"
  • The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry: A Novel
    Play The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry: A Novel

    The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry: A Novel

    • UNABRIDGED (9 hrs and 57 mins)
    • By Rachel Joyce
    • Narrated By Jim Broadbent
    • Whispersync for Voice-ready
    Overall
    (1645)
    Performance
    (1446)
    Story
    (1438)

    Meet Harold Fry, recently retired. He lives in a small English village with his wife, Maureen, who seems irritated by almost everything he does, even down to how he butters his toast. Little differentiates one day from the next. Then one morning the mail arrives, and within the stack is a letter addressed to Harold from a woman he hasn't seen or heard from in 20 years. Queenie Hennessy is in hospice and is writing to say goodbye. Harold pens a quick reply and, leaving Maureen to her chores, heads to the corner mailbox. But then Harold has a chance encounter, one that convinces him that he absolutely must deliver his message to Queenie in person.

    Darwin8u says: "To Be A Pilgrim!"
  • We Need New Names: A Novel
    Play We Need New Names: A Novel

    We Need New Names: A Novel

    • UNABRIDGED (9 hrs and 4 mins)
    • By NoViolet Bulawayo
    • Narrated By Robin Miles
    Overall
    (0)
    Performance
    (0)
    Story
    (0)

    Darling is only 10 years old, and yet she must navigate a fragile and violent world. In Zimbabwe, Darling and her friends steal guavas, try to get the baby out of young Chipo's belly, and grasp at memories of Before. Before their homes were destroyed by paramilitary policemen, before the school closed, before the fathers left for dangerous jobs abroad. But Darling has a chance to escape: She has an aunt in America. She travels to this new land in search of America's famous abundance only to find that her options as an immigrant are perilously few.

  • Creatures of Habit: Stories
    Play Creatures of Habit: Stories

    Creatures of Habit: Stories

    • UNABRIDGED (5 hrs and 6 mins)
    • By Jill McCorkle
    • Narrated By Claire Slemmer, Allyson Johnson, Allison McLemore, and others
    Overall
    (0)
    Performance
    (0)
    Story
    (0)

    Jill McCorkle's new collection of 12 short stories is peopled with characters brilliantly like us - flawed, clueless, endearing. These stories are also "animaled" with all manner of mammal, bird, fish, reptile - also flawed and endearing. She asks, what don't humans share with the so-called lesser species? Looking for the answer, she takes us back to her fictional home town of Fulton, North Carolina, to meet a broad range of characters facing up to the double-edged sword life offers hominids.

  • Golden Boy: A Novel
    Play Golden Boy: A Novel

    Golden Boy: A Novel

    • UNABRIDGED (12 hrs and 40 mins)
    • By Abigail Tarttelin
    • Narrated By Christian Coulson, James Langton, Abigail Tarttelin, and others
    Overall
    (0)
    Performance
    (0)
    Story
    (0)

    Max Walker is a golden boy. Attractive, intelligent, and athletic, he's the perfect son. Max's mother, a highly successful criminal lawyer, is determined to maintain the facade of effortless excellence she has constructed through the years. Now that the boys are getting older, now that she won't have as much control, she worries that the facade might soon begin to crumble. Adding to the tension, her husband, Steve, has chosen this moment to stand for election to Parliament. The Walkers are hiding something, you see. Max is special. Max is different. Max is intersex.

  • Umbrella: A Novel
    Play Umbrella: A Novel

    Umbrella: A Novel

    • UNABRIDGED (13 hrs and 50 mins)
    • By Will Self
    • Narrated By John Lee
    Overall
    (0)
    Performance
    (0)
    Story
    (0)

    While making his first tours of the hospital at which he has just begun working, maverick psychiatrist Zachary Busner notices that many of the patients exhibit a strange physical tic: rapid, precise movements that they repeat over and over. One of these patients is Audrey Dearth, an elderly woman born in the slums of West London in 1890. Audrey’s memories of a bygone Edwardian London, her lovers, involvement with early feminist and socialist movements, and, in particular, her time working in an umbrella shop, alternate with Busner’s attempts to treat her condition and bring light to her clouded world.

  •  
  • And the Mountains Echoed
    Play And the Mountains Echoed

    And the Mountains Echoed

    • UNABRIDGED (14 hrs and 1 min)
    • By Khaled Hosseini
    • Narrated By Khaled Hosseini, Navid Negahban, Shohreh Aghdashloo
    • Whispersync for Voice-ready
    Overall
    (2)
    Performance
    (1)
    Story
    (0)

    Khaled Hosseini, the number-one New York Times best-selling author of The Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns, has written a new novel about how we love, how we take care of one another, and how the choices we make resonate through generations.

  • My Father's Ghost Is Climbing in the Rain
    Play My Father's Ghost Is Climbing in the Rain

    My Father's Ghost Is Climbing in the Rain

    • UNABRIDGED (4 hrs and 48 mins)
    • By Patricio Pron
    • Narrated By Ramón de Ocampo
    Overall
    (0)
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    (0)
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    A young writer, living abroad, returns home to his native Argentina to say goodbye to his dying father. In his parents' house, he finds a cache of documents - articles, maps, photographs - and unwittingly begins to unearth his father’s obsession with the disappearance of a local man. Suddenly he comes face to face with the ghosts of Argentina's dark political past and long-forgotten memories of his family’s resistance against an oppressive military regime.

  • The Great Gatsby
    Play The Great Gatsby

    The Great Gatsby

    • UNABRIDGED (5 hrs and 10 mins)
    • By F. Scott Fitzgerald
    • Narrated By Dan Russell
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    (0)
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    (0)
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    The Great Gatsby, first Published in 1925 and probably F. Scott Fitzgerald's finest novel, is set on Long Island's North shore, where Nick Carraway begins a new life in New York in the "roaring 20's".

    Carraway is invited to join his new neighbour Jay Gatsby's social circle, including the self-made millionaire's legendary parties, and bears witness to Gatsby's rekindled love affair with the unhappily married Daisy, which ends in tragedy. Today the novel is widely regarded as a paragon of the Great American Novel and a literary classic.

  • Going Away Shoes: Stories
    Play Going Away Shoes: Stories

    Going Away Shoes: Stories

    • UNABRIDGED (6 hrs and 24 mins)
    • By Jill McCorkle
    • Narrated By Claire Slemmer, Allison McLemore, Elizabeth Evans, and others
    Overall
    (0)
    Performance
    (0)
    Story
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    Here, in her first collection in eight years, McCorkle collects 11 brand-new stories bristling with her characteristic combination of wit and weight. In honeymoon shoes, mud-covered hunting boots, or glass slippers, all of the women in these stories march to a place of new awareness, in one way or another, transforming their lives. They make mistakes, but they don’t waste time hiding behind them. They move on. They are strong. And they’re funny, even when they are sad.

  •  
  • A Regular Guy
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    A Regular Guy

    • UNABRIDGED (14 hrs and 30 mins)
    • By Mona Simpson
    • Narrated By Patrick Lawlor
    Overall
    (0)
    Performance
    (0)
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    (0)

    Tom Owens is a brilliant barefoot entrepreneur who has become rich and famous by inventing a new kind of business - a man who is fond of showering his largesse on friends and perfect strangers even as he resists any deeper claims on his affection. Into Owens's charmed life comes a 10-year-old girl whose claims he cannot ignore: Jane is his daughter, born out of wedlock, raised in communes, and now dispatched into his care by a mother who is no longer capable of providing it.

  • Latitudes: A Story of Coming Home
    Play Latitudes: A Story of Coming Home

    Latitudes: A Story of Coming Home

    • UNABRIDGED (8 hrs and 49 mins)
    • By Anthony Caplan
    • Narrated By Mike Lykins, Jake Noble, Tater
    Overall
    (0)
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    (0)
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    When Father and Mother, a highflying young American lawyer and his party-hard bride, fall prey to the self-destructive lure of alcohol and sexual liberation, Will and his sisters pay the price in divorce and kidnappings that take them back and forth between the rain forest hideaways of coastal Latin America and the placid suburbs of Long Island. Will identifies with the oppressed workers laboring in his father's fast food restaurant and longs for American freedom.

  • Chaplin and Company
    Play Chaplin and Company

    Chaplin and Company

    • UNABRIDGED (10 hrs and 8 mins)
    • By Mave Fellowes
    • Narrated By Lucy Price-Lewis
    • Whispersync for Voice-ready
    Overall
    (1)
    Performance
    (1)
    Story
    (1)

    Leaving her tiny English village for the bright lights of London, Odeline Milk is finally going to make her dream a reality: to establish herself as a mime artist. She certainly wears the clothes for it: white collarless shirt, waistcoat, baggy black trousers, walking stuck and bow tie have long been her uniform. She’s an unusual young woman. With the inheritance left by her mother, Odeline buys her own little patch of London: an old houseboat on the canal.

  • The Return
    Play The Return

    The Return

    • UNABRIDGED (6 hrs and 35 mins)
    • By Roberto Bolano
    • Narrated By Walter Krochmal
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    (0)
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    A stunning collection of short stories - mostly dealing with the sex trade - by the late Chilean master and author of The Savage Detectives. The Return contains thirteen unforgettable stories that seem to tell what Bolano called "the secret story," "the one we’ll never know." Bent on returning to haunt you, Bolano’s tales might concern the unexpected fate of a beautiful ex-girlfriend, or soccer, witchcraft, or a dream of meeting the poet Enrique Lihn: They always surprise.