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Literary

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Cariola
Cariola Chambersburg, PA USA Member Since 2005

malfi

HELPFUL VOTES
501
ratings
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309
136
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FOLLOWING
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6
  • Little Bee: A Novel

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

    Overall
    Performance
    Story

    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.

    More

    Little Bee: A Novel

    • UNABRIDGED (10 hrs and 44 mins)
    • By Chris Cleave
    • Narrated By Anne Flosnik
    • Whispersync for Voice-ready
    Overall
    (1080)
    Performance
    (401)
    Story
    (402)

    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?)"
  • All Passion Spent

    "Aging Gracefully"

    Overall
    Performance
    Story

    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)
    Story
    (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"
  • The White Tiger: A Novel

    "Definitely deserved the Booker Prize"

    Overall
    Performance
    Story

    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
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    Overall
    (1520)
    Performance
    (420)
    Story
    (416)

    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"
  1. Little Bee: A Novel
  2. All Passion Spent
  3. The White Tiger: A Novel
    4. .

A Peek at Janice's Bookshelf

Helpful
Votes
717
 
Janice
Sugar Land, TX, United States 110 REVIEWS / 143 ratings Member Since 2010 203 Followers / Following 3
 
Janice's greatest hits:
  • A Grown-Up Kind of Pretty: A Novel
    A Grown-Up Kind of Pretty: A Novel

    "I wanted to cheer out loud!"

    Overall
    Performance
    Story
    Would you consider the audio edition of A Grown-Up Kind of Pretty to be better than the print version?

    Have only listened, but Jackson is one of very few authors that I look forward to hearing read her own work.


    Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

    If I had the time, yes.


    Any additional comments?

    The best of Jackson's books that I've read so far, and I've enjoyed all I've read immensely. The author breathes real life into her quirky, loving characters, and gives us a mystery to solve as a bonus. The strength and southern sass of Mosey and especially Big make them immediately accessible, and through obvious stroke research and instinct for human nature, even Liza becomes a fully developed member of the cast. Supporting characters are all spot-on. The ending made me want to cheer out loud. I recommend Jackson's books to all of my reading friends, and try hard to get them to listen to them as audio books for the wonderful reading by the author.

  • A Land More Kind Than Home
    A Land More Kind Than Home

    "An American Tragedy"

    Overall
    Performance
    Story

    Not since "Night of the Hunter" can I remember a more charismatically evil "preacher" captivating a community and placing innocent children in peril. Two people know the danger in the preacher - the sheriff who has no legal evidence to act, and Adelaide, an elderly woman of the church who has appointed herself protector of the children in the congregation. These two are moral anchors of the community, in their own ways keepng the peace. But then the curiosity of two brothers sets events in motion that gain momentum and become explosive in a matter of only days.

    Wiley Cash has perfectly captured the language of the region, with a finely tuned ear for genuine dialogue and prose. The characters are complexly gritty, tender, damaged and innocent, Told by three first-person voices, we get an inside look at life in the mountain country of North Carolina, where communities are close knit and closed in, and ruled by tobacco and fundamentalist religion. The three voices - Adelaide, Sheriff Barefield, and Jess Hall, a 10 year old boy terrified at being thrust center stage in the machinations of an adult world he can't understand, are all voiced impeccably by a trio of accomplished narrators. I generally avoid multiple-reader books, but seeing that Lorna Raver was included convinced me to give it a try. (Her performance of "Fried Green Tomatoes" was exquisite.) I was not disappointed.

  • The Orchardist
    The Orchardist

    "Unsentimentally haunting"

    Overall
    Performance
    Story

    The strength of this story is the sparse, unsentimental narrative, unadorned by adjectives, contrived dialogue, or flowery prose. It moves at a slow deliberate pace, not always in a linear direction, sometimes repeating scenes from different characters' points of view. In this way we come to understand the inner thoughts of each and see how they can be fully committed to each other without fully understanding each other. The first half of the book covers many years, switching back and forth between characters and locations, reviewed with little detail, almost as though someone was going through a box of old photographs and explaining what was happening when each was taken, patching together a lifetime of memories without really explaining the life. Remarkably, it is effective in developing the characters and getting to the second half of the book in which the normal routines of life in the orchard are disrupted when history rears its head and must be dealt with.

    Mark Bramhall's reading makes this story remarkable. Because there is little dialogue, he does not have to create vastly different voices. But through subtle changes in tone, pacing and inflection each character does have individual voice. Talmadge in particular becomes palpably real through Bramhall's slow rough voice. This is an Audible book that is truly best listened to.

  • A Secret Kept
    A Secret Kept

    "Couldn't finish"

    Overall
    Performance
    Story

    I read reviews complaining of the self centered, whining protagonist, and thought that perhaps those reviewers were being too harsh. I hoped that whatever The Secret of the title is would create enough of a compelling story to compensate for character weaknesses, as was the case in Sarah's Key. Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to BE a compelling story. I have finally given up after listening to roughly half of the story - endless depressing descriptions of a man devoid of personality, admittedly at a loss as to how to relate to his children and moping about his ex-wife. But what finally did it was the unnecessary forensic descriptions of his "romantic" interlude in the morgue with the nymphomaniac mortician. I have not found a likable character yet and finally have decided I don't care what the secret is (although I do have a guess, and might go to my local book store just to turn to the end to see if I'm right). It's just not worth the hours more of tedious day-by-day woe-is-me. Grow a backbone and get on with it.

Molly-o
Molly-o Seattle 12-25-11 Member Since 2007

English major. Love to read

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  • Middlemarch

    "Best Audible book ever"

    21 of 21 helpful votes

    I have been an audible listener for close to five years now and this is the best book I have ever listened to. I hated this book in college and,if it hadn't been for a friend who suggested I try it again,I would have continued to hate it. I now say pish on my earlier self, this is a fantastic story and George Eliot is an insightful woman whose perspective on life is timeless. But the very best part of this listen is Juliet Stevenson. Oh my, what a narrator: I may be forever spoiled by her mastery. My favorite characterizations were the stuffy Englishmen whose voices were so perfectly captured that I was in awe each time I heard them. This is a must read.

    More

    Middlemarch

    • UNABRIDGED (35 hrs and 40 mins)
    • By George Eliot
    • Narrated By Juliet Stevenson
    • Whispersync for Voice-ready
    Overall
    (293)
    Performance
    (233)
    Story
    (224)

    Dorothea Brooke is an ardent idealist who represses her vivacity and intelligence for the cold, theological pedant Casaubon. One man understands her true nature: the artist Will Ladislaw. But how can love triumph against her sense of duty and Casaubon’s mean spirit? Meanwhile, in the little world of Middlemarch, the broader world is mirrored: the world of politics, social change, and reforms, as well as betrayal, greed, blackmail, ambition, and disappointment.

    Marina says: "I will listen to anything Juliet Stevenson reads"

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  • 4.8 (10 ratings)
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  • 4.4 (5655 ratings)
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    Why we think it’s a great listen: Never before has an author’s narration of his fiction been so important to fully grasping the book’s impact and global implications. Taking us from Afghanistan in the final days of its monarchy to the present, The Kite Runner is the unforgettable story of the friendship between two boys growing up in Kabul. Their intertwined lives, and their fates, reflect the eventual tragedy of the world around them.

    Joseph says: "A storyteller's story"
  • 4.3 (4009 ratings)
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    Atlas Shrugged

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    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.

    Mica says: "Hurt version decidedly superior"
  • 4.5 (3244 ratings)
    Memoirs of a Geisha
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    Memoirs of a Geisha

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    In a voice both haunting and startlingly immediate, Nitta Sayuri describes her life as a geisha. Taken from her home at the age of nine, she is sold into slavery to a renowned geisha house. Witness her transformation as you enter a world where appearances are paramount, virginity is auctioned to the highest bidder, women beguile powerful men, and love is scorned as illusion.

    Stephanie says: "Best Book in a while"
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  • 4.4 (2032 ratings)
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    Watership Down

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    Fiver could sense danger. Something terrible was going to happen to the warren; he felt sure of it. They had to leave immediately. So begins a long and perilous journey of survival for a small band of rabbits. As the rabbits skirt danger at every turn, we become acquainted with the band, its humorous characters, and its compelling culture, complete with its own folk history and mythos.

    B. Cable says: "Still one of the best!"
  • 4.3 (1953 ratings)
    The Poisonwood Bible
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    • Barbara Kingsolver

    The Poisonwood Bible

    • UNABRIDGED (15 hrs and 33 mins)
    • By Barbara Kingsolver
    • Narrated By Dean Robertson
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    The Poisonwood Bible is a story told by the wife and four daughters of Nathan Price, a fierce evangelical Baptist who takes his family and mission to the Belgian Congo in 1959. They carry with them all they believe they will need from home, but soon find that all of it - from garden seeds to Scripture - is calamitously transformed on African soil.

    Lynda Rains Bonchack says: "A long time coming..........."
  • 4.3 (1653 ratings)
    The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry: A Novel
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    The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry: A Novel

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    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!"
  • 4.4 (960 ratings)
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    Animal Farm

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    George Orwell's classic satire of the Russian Revolution is an intimate part of our contemporary culture, quoted so often that we tend to forget who wrote the original words! This must-read is also a must-listen!

    Dusty says: "If you hate spoilers, save the intro for last."
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  • 4.4 (934 ratings)
    A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
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    A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

    • UNABRIDGED (15 hrs and 2 mins)
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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.

    Nancy says: "Leaves you wondering what happened next -"
  • 4.4 (866 ratings)
    The Secret Life of Bees
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    • Sue Monk Kidd

    The Secret Life of Bees

    • UNABRIDGED (9 hrs and 54 mins)
    • By Sue Monk Kidd
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    Sue Monk Kidd's ravishing debut novel has stolen the hearts of reviewers and readers alike with its strong, assured voice. Set in South Carolina in 1964, The Secret Life of Bees tells the story of Lily Owens, whose life has been shaped around the blurred memory of the afternoon her mother was killed.

    Laura says: "It's hard to stop listening..."
  • 4.3 (713 ratings)
    Deliverance
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    • James Dickey

    Deliverance

    • UNABRIDGED (7 hrs and 35 mins)
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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.

    Katherine says: "excruciatingly vivid, marvelously written and read"
  • 4.4 (691 ratings)
    The Color Purple
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    The Color Purple

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    Celie is a poor black woman whose letters tell the story of 20 years of her life, beginning at age 14 - when she is being abused and raped by her father and attempting to protect her sister from the same fate - and continuing over the course of her marriage to "Mister", a brutal man who terrorizes her.

    Lauren says: "Good Listen"

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  • And the Mountains Echoed
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    • Khaled Hosseini

    And the Mountains Echoed

    • UNABRIDGED (14 hrs and 1 min)
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    • Narrated By Khaled Hosseini, Navid Negahban, Shohreh Aghdashloo
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    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.

    FanB14 says: "Does the End Justify the Means"
  • Orphan Train: A Novel
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    • Christina Baker Kline

    Orphan Train: A Novel

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    (247)
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    (219)
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    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
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    • Kate Atkinson

    Life After Life: A Novel

    • UNABRIDGED (15 hrs and 34 mins)
    • By Kate Atkinson
    • Narrated By Fenella Woolgar
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    (187)
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    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.."
  • The Interestings
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    • Meg Wolitzer

    The Interestings

    • UNABRIDGED (15 hrs and 41 mins)
    • By Meg Wolitzer
    • Narrated By Jen Tullock
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    (81)
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    (66)
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    (66)

    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)"
  •  
  • Beautiful Ruins
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    • Jess Walter

    Beautiful Ruins

    • UNABRIDGED (12 hrs and 53 mins)
    • By Jess Walter
    • Narrated By Edoardo Ballerini
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    (3820)
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    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..."
  • The Burgess Boys: A Novel
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    • Elizabeth Strout

    The Burgess Boys: A Novel

    • UNABRIDGED (13 hrs and 29 mins)
    • By Elizabeth Strout
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    (115)
    Performance
    (96)
    Story
    (91)

    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 Kite Runner
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    The Kite Runner
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    • Khaled Hosseini

    The Kite Runner

    • UNABRIDGED (12 hrs and 2 mins)
    • By Khaled Hosseini
    • Narrated By Khaled Hosseini
    Overall
    (5655)
    Performance
    (1067)
    Story
    (1073)

    Why we think it’s a great listen: Never before has an author’s narration of his fiction been so important to fully grasping the book’s impact and global implications. Taking us from Afghanistan in the final days of its monarchy to the present, The Kite Runner is the unforgettable story of the friendship between two boys growing up in Kabul. Their intertwined lives, and their fates, reflect the eventual tragedy of the world around them.

    Joseph says: "A storyteller's story"
  • Atlas Shrugged
    Play Atlas Shrugged
    Atlas Shrugged
    UNABRIDGED
    • Ayn Rand

    Atlas Shrugged

    • UNABRIDGED (63 hrs)
    • By Ayn Rand
    • Narrated By Scott Brick
    Overall
    (4009)
    Performance
    (2043)
    Story
    (2037)

    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.

    Mica says: "Hurt version decidedly superior"
  •  
  • Cloud Atlas
    Play Cloud Atlas
    Cloud Atlas
    UNABRIDGED
    • David Mitchell

    Cloud Atlas

    • UNABRIDGED (19 hrs and 33 mins)
    • By David Mitchell
    • Narrated By Scott Brick, Cassandra Campbell, Kim Mai Guest, and others
    Overall
    (2288)
    Performance
    (1570)
    Story
    (1565)

    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 Orphan Master's Son: A Novel of North Korea
    Play The Orphan Master's Son: A Novel of North Korea
    The Orphan Master's Son: A Novel of North Korea
    UNABRIDGED
    • Adam Johnson

    The Orphan Master's Son: A Novel of North Korea

    • UNABRIDGED (19 hrs and 22 mins)
    • By Adam Johnson
    • Narrated By Tim Kang, Josiah D. Lee, James Kyson Lee, and others
    • Whispersync for Voice-ready
    Overall
    (384)
    Performance
    (317)
    Story
    (322)

    Pak Jun Do is the haunted son of a lost mother - a singer “stolen” to Pyongyang - and an influential father who runs Long Tomorrows, a work camp for orphans. There the boy is given his first taste of power, picking which orphans eat first and which will be lent out for manual labor. Recognized for his loyalty and keen instincts, Jun Do comes to the attention of superiors in the state, rises in the ranks, and starts on a road from which there will be no return.

    Lisa says: "The most compelling listen I've ever owned"
  • The Ocean at the End of the Lane: A Novel
    The Ocean at the End of the Lane: A Novel
    UNABRIDGED
    • Neil Gaiman

    The Ocean at the End of the Lane: A Novel

    • UNABRIDGED (5 hrs and 49 mins)
    • By Neil Gaiman
    • Narrated By Neil Gaiman
    Overall
    (0)
    Performance
    (0)
    Story
    (0)

    A middle-aged man returns to his childhood home to attend a funeral. He is drawn to the farm at the end of the road, where, when he was seven, he encountered a most remarkable girl, Lettie Hempstock. Forty years earlier, a man committed suicide in a stolen car at this farm at the end of the road. Like a fuse on a firework, his death lit a touchpaper. The darkness was unleashed, something scary and thoroughly incomprehensible to a little boy. And Lettie - magical, comforting, wise beyond her years - promised to protect him, no matter what.

  • The Secret Keeper
    Play The Secret Keeper
    The Secret Keeper
    UNABRIDGED
    • Kate Morton

    The Secret Keeper

    • UNABRIDGED (19 hrs and 54 mins)
    • By Kate Morton
    • Narrated By Caroline Lee
    • Whispersync for Voice-ready
    Overall
    (1496)
    Performance
    (1248)
    Story
    (1260)

    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!"

New Releases

(More Literary New Releases) All Literary New Releases
  • The Son
    Play The Son
    The Son
    UNABRIDGED
    • Michel Rostain

    The Son

    • UNABRIDGED (3 hrs and 53 mins)
    • By Michel Rostain
    • Narrated By Stefan Booth
    Overall
    (0)
    Performance
    (0)
    Story
    (0)

    This is not a book about death. It's a book about life. We first meet Michel 11 days after the death of his son Lion. Lion was lost, suddenly, to a virulent strain of meningitis and it's left his father and entire family reeling. We join Michel on his personal journey through grief, but the twist that makes the journey truly remarkable, and tips this true story into fiction, is the fact that we see it all through Lion's eyes. In a stunningly original blurring of memoir and fiction, The Son tackles the very hardest of subjects in the most readable of ways.

  • The Hive
    Play The Hive
    The Hive
    UNABRIDGED
    • Gill Hornby

    The Hive

    • UNABRIDGED (10 hrs and 41 mins)
    • By Gill Hornby
    • Narrated By Karen Cass
    Overall
    (0)
    Performance
    (0)
    Story
    (0)

    Welcome to St Ambrose Primary School. A world of friendships, fights and feuding. And that's just the mothers.It's the start of another school year at St Ambrose. But while the children are in the classroom colouring in, their mothers are learning sharper lessons on the other side of the school gates. Lessons in friendship. Lessons in betrayal. Lessons in the laws of community, the transience of power... and how to get invited to lunch.Beatrice - undisputed queen bee.

  • Shadow of a Lady
    Play Shadow of a Lady
    Shadow of a Lady
    UNABRIDGED
    • Jane Aiken Hodge

    Shadow of a Lady

    • UNABRIDGED (12 hrs and 15 mins)
    • By Jane Aiken Hodge
    • Narrated By Tara Ochs
    Overall
    (0)
    Performance
    (0)
    Story
    (0)

    Against the backdrop of the Napoleonic Wars and the glitter of the court of Naples, this captivating novel unfolds the story of Helen Telfair, a young English woman in search of herself. Helen, intelligent, witty, rebellious, had sworn never to marry. But when she found herself with child after a brutal encounter with a stranger, she agreed to marry the wealthy and dissolute Lord Henry Merritt. Helen, neglected by her husband, felt very much alone - until she met Emma, the celebrated Lady Hamilton.

  • Dolores
    Play Dolores
    Dolores
    UNABRIDGED
    • Ivy Compton-Burnett

    Dolores

    • UNABRIDGED (9 hrs and 8 mins)
    • By Ivy Compton-Burnett
    • Narrated By Gwen Hughes
    Overall
    (0)
    Performance
    (0)
    Story
    (0)

    The first edition of Dolores was published in 1911. It sold well, and was promptly forgotten. Now that her career of sixty years is ended, and her long achievement more and more acclaimed, Dolores, standing at that remote beginning, is curiously reborn.

  •  
  • Dot
    Play Dot
    Dot
    UNABRIDGED
    • Araminta Hall

    Dot

    • UNABRIDGED (8 hrs and 1 min)
    • By Araminta Hall
    • Narrated By Claire Morgan
    Overall
    (0)
    Performance
    (0)
    Story
    (0)

    In a higgledy-piggledy house with turrets and tunnels towering over the sleepy Welsh village of Druith, two girls play hide and seek. They don’t see its grandeur or the secrets locked behind doors they cannot open. They see lots of brilliant places to hide. Squeezed under her mother’s bed, pulse racing with the thrill of a new hiding place, Dot sees something else: a long-forgotten photograph of a man, his hair blowing in the breeze. Dot stares so long at the photograph the image begins to disintegrate before her eyes, and as the image fades it is replaced with one thought: ‘I think it’s definitely him.’

  • We Need New Names: A Novel
    Play We Need New Names: A Novel
    We Need New Names: A Novel
    UNABRIDGED
    • NoViolet Bulawayo

    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
    • Jill McCorkle

    Creatures of Habit: Stories

    • UNABRIDGED (5 hrs and 6 mins)
    • By Jill McCorkle
    • Narrated By Claire Slemmer, Allyson Johnson, Allison McLemore, and others
    • Whispersync for Voice-ready
    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.

  • Umbrella: A Novel
    Play Umbrella: A Novel
    Umbrella: A Novel
    UNABRIDGED
    • Will Self

    Umbrella: A Novel

    • UNABRIDGED (13 hrs and 50 mins)
    • By Will Self
    • Narrated By John Lee
    Overall
    (1)
    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
    • Khaled Hosseini

    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
    (15)
    Performance
    (9)
    Story
    (8)

    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.

    FanB14 says: "Does the End Justify the Means"
  • Golden Boy: A Novel
    Play Golden Boy: A Novel
    Golden Boy: A Novel
    UNABRIDGED
    • Abigail Tarttelin

    Golden Boy: A Novel

    • UNABRIDGED (12 hrs and 40 mins)
    • By Abigail Tarttelin
    • Narrated By Christian Coulson, James Langton, Abigail Tarttelin, and others
    Overall
    (1)
    Performance
    (1)
    Story
    (1)

    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.

  • 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
    • Patricio Pron

    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)
    Performance
    (0)
    Story
    (0)

    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
    • F. Scott Fitzgerald

    The Great Gatsby

    • UNABRIDGED (5 hrs and 10 mins)
    • By F. Scott Fitzgerald
    • Narrated By Dan Russell
    Overall
    (0)
    Performance
    (0)
    Story
    (0)

    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.