-
Rebel Souls
- Walt Whitman and America's First Bohemians
- Narrated by: Dennis Holland
- Length: 10 hrs and 11 mins
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
Prime members: New to Audible?Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Rebel Souls
Buy for $24.95
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
Listeners also enjoyed...
-
Berlin
- Life and Death in the City at the Center of the World
- By: Sinclair McKay
- Narrated by: Leighton Pugh
- Length: 16 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 21
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 18
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 18
Sinclair McKay's portrait of Berlin from 1919 forward explores the city's broad human history, from the end of the Great War to the Blockade, rise of the Wall, and beyond. Sinclair McKay's Berlin begins by taking listeners back to 1919, when the city emerged from the shadows of the Great War to become an extraordinary by-word for modernity—in art, cinema, architecture, industry, science, and politics. He traces the city’s history through the rise of Hitler and the Battle for Berlin, which ended in the final conquest of the city in 1945.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
Very I informative
- By Anonymous User on 09-14-22
By: Sinclair McKay
-
Walt Whitman’s America
- A Cultural Biography
- By: David S. Reynolds
- Narrated by: John Lescault
- Length: 28 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 52
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 41
-
Story5 out of 5 stars 42
In his poetry, Walt Whitman set out to encompass all of America, and in so doing, heal its deepening divisions. This magisterial biography demonstrates the epic scale of his achievement, as well as the dreams and anxieties that impelled it, for it places the poet securely within the political and cultural context of his age.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Helps the listener to understand Leaves of Grass
- By Phil F. on 10-13-22
-
Genius of Place
- The Life of Frederick Law Olmsted
- By: Justin Martin
- Narrated by: Richard Ferrone
- Length: 18 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 243
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 222
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 223
Frederick Law Olmsted is arguably the most important historical figure that the average American knows the least about. Best remembered for his landscape architecture, from New York's Central Park to Boston's Emerald Necklace to Stanford University's campus, Olmsted was also an influential journalist, early voice for the environment, and abolitionist credited with helping dissuade England from joining the South in the Civil War. This momentous career was shadowed by a tragic personal life, also fully portrayed here.
-
3 out of 5 stars
-
Ponderous yet incomplete
- By John F. Caffrey on 01-23-19
By: Justin Martin
-
Illuminations
- Essays and Reflections
- By: Walter Benjamin, Hannah Arendt
- Narrated by: Stefan Rudnicki
- Length: 10 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall5 out of 5 stars 27
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 23
-
Story5 out of 5 stars 22
Walter Benjamin was an icon of criticism, renowned for his insight on art, literature, and philosophy. This volume includes his views on Kafka, with whom he felt a close personal affinity; his studies on Baudelaire and Proust; and his essays on Leskov and Brecht’s epic theater. Illuminations also includes his penetrating study “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction”, an enlightening discussion of translation as a literary mode, and his theses on the philosophy of history.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
finally
- By Anonymous User on 12-08-21
By: Walter Benjamin, and others
-
The Adolescent
- By: Fyodor Dostoevsky, Richard Pevear - translator, Larissa Volokhonsky - translator
- Narrated by: P.J. Ochlan
- Length: 28 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 45
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 41
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 41
The narrator and protagonist of Dostoevsky's novel The Adolescent (first published in English as A Raw Youth) is Arkady Dolgoruky, a naive 19-year-old boy bursting with ambition and opinions. The illegitimate son of a dissipated landowner, he is torn between his desire to expose his father's wrongdoing and the desire to win his love. He travels to St. Petersburg to confront the father he barely knows, inspired by an inchoate dream of communion and armed with a mysterious document that he believes gives him power over others.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
An Oft-Forgotten Dostoevsky Gem
- By Ben on 02-09-20
By: Fyodor Dostoevsky, and others
-
Magnificent Rebels
- The First Romantics and the Invention of the Self
- By: Andrea Wulf
- Narrated by: Julie Teal
- Length: 15 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 106
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 90
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 90
When did we begin to be as self-centered as we are today? At what point did we expect to have the right to determine our own lives? When did we first ask the question, how can I be free? It all began in the 1790s in a quiet university town in Germany when a group of playwrights, poets, and writers put the self at center stage in their thinking, writing, and their lives.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
fascinating overall, too much drama
- By soup cook on 11-27-22
By: Andrea Wulf
-
Berlin
- Life and Death in the City at the Center of the World
- By: Sinclair McKay
- Narrated by: Leighton Pugh
- Length: 16 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 21
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 18
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 18
Sinclair McKay's portrait of Berlin from 1919 forward explores the city's broad human history, from the end of the Great War to the Blockade, rise of the Wall, and beyond. Sinclair McKay's Berlin begins by taking listeners back to 1919, when the city emerged from the shadows of the Great War to become an extraordinary by-word for modernity—in art, cinema, architecture, industry, science, and politics. He traces the city’s history through the rise of Hitler and the Battle for Berlin, which ended in the final conquest of the city in 1945.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
Very I informative
- By Anonymous User on 09-14-22
By: Sinclair McKay
-
Walt Whitman’s America
- A Cultural Biography
- By: David S. Reynolds
- Narrated by: John Lescault
- Length: 28 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 52
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 41
-
Story5 out of 5 stars 42
In his poetry, Walt Whitman set out to encompass all of America, and in so doing, heal its deepening divisions. This magisterial biography demonstrates the epic scale of his achievement, as well as the dreams and anxieties that impelled it, for it places the poet securely within the political and cultural context of his age.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Helps the listener to understand Leaves of Grass
- By Phil F. on 10-13-22
-
Genius of Place
- The Life of Frederick Law Olmsted
- By: Justin Martin
- Narrated by: Richard Ferrone
- Length: 18 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 243
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 222
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 223
Frederick Law Olmsted is arguably the most important historical figure that the average American knows the least about. Best remembered for his landscape architecture, from New York's Central Park to Boston's Emerald Necklace to Stanford University's campus, Olmsted was also an influential journalist, early voice for the environment, and abolitionist credited with helping dissuade England from joining the South in the Civil War. This momentous career was shadowed by a tragic personal life, also fully portrayed here.
-
3 out of 5 stars
-
Ponderous yet incomplete
- By John F. Caffrey on 01-23-19
By: Justin Martin
-
Illuminations
- Essays and Reflections
- By: Walter Benjamin, Hannah Arendt
- Narrated by: Stefan Rudnicki
- Length: 10 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall5 out of 5 stars 27
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 23
-
Story5 out of 5 stars 22
Walter Benjamin was an icon of criticism, renowned for his insight on art, literature, and philosophy. This volume includes his views on Kafka, with whom he felt a close personal affinity; his studies on Baudelaire and Proust; and his essays on Leskov and Brecht’s epic theater. Illuminations also includes his penetrating study “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction”, an enlightening discussion of translation as a literary mode, and his theses on the philosophy of history.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
finally
- By Anonymous User on 12-08-21
By: Walter Benjamin, and others
-
The Adolescent
- By: Fyodor Dostoevsky, Richard Pevear - translator, Larissa Volokhonsky - translator
- Narrated by: P.J. Ochlan
- Length: 28 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 45
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 41
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 41
The narrator and protagonist of Dostoevsky's novel The Adolescent (first published in English as A Raw Youth) is Arkady Dolgoruky, a naive 19-year-old boy bursting with ambition and opinions. The illegitimate son of a dissipated landowner, he is torn between his desire to expose his father's wrongdoing and the desire to win his love. He travels to St. Petersburg to confront the father he barely knows, inspired by an inchoate dream of communion and armed with a mysterious document that he believes gives him power over others.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
An Oft-Forgotten Dostoevsky Gem
- By Ben on 02-09-20
By: Fyodor Dostoevsky, and others
-
Magnificent Rebels
- The First Romantics and the Invention of the Self
- By: Andrea Wulf
- Narrated by: Julie Teal
- Length: 15 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 106
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 90
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 90
When did we begin to be as self-centered as we are today? At what point did we expect to have the right to determine our own lives? When did we first ask the question, how can I be free? It all began in the 1790s in a quiet university town in Germany when a group of playwrights, poets, and writers put the self at center stage in their thinking, writing, and their lives.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
fascinating overall, too much drama
- By soup cook on 11-27-22
By: Andrea Wulf
-
James Joyce
- Revised Edition
- By: Richard Ellman
- Narrated by: John Keating
- Length: 37 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 128
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 113
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 112
Richard Ellmann has revised and expanded his definitive work on Joyce's life to include newly discovered primary material, including details of a failed love affair, a limerick about Samuel Beckett, a dream notebook, previously unknown letters, and much more.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
Not Unabridged, Strictly Speaking
- By Charles B on 07-24-17
By: Richard Ellman
-
Twilight of the Belle Epoque
- The Paris of Picasso, Stravinsky, Proust, Renault, Marie Curie, Gertrude Stein, and Their Friends Through the Great War
- By: Mary McAuliffe
- Narrated by: Nancy Peterson
- Length: 16 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 13
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 12
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 12
Mary McAuliffe's Dawn of the Belle Epoque took the listener from the multiple disasters of 1870-1871 through the extraordinary re-emergence of Paris as the cultural center of the Western world. Now, in Twilight of the Belle Epoque, McAuliffe portrays Paris in full flower at the turn of the 20th century, where creative dynamos such as Picasso, Matisse, Stravinsky, Debussy, Ravel, Proust, Marie Curie, Gertrude Stein, Jean Cocteau, and Isadora Duncan set their respective circles on fire with a barrage of revolutionary visions and discoveries.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Fun, immersive listen; but the narrator...
- By SBG on 02-22-23
By: Mary McAuliffe
-
This Is What It Sounds Like
- What the Music You Love Says About You
- By: Ogi Ogas, Susan Rogers
- Narrated by: Susan Rogers
- Length: 8 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 136
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 102
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 102
When you listen to music, do you prefer lyrics or melody? Intricate harmonies or driving rhythm? The “real” sounds of acoustic instruments or those of computerized synthesizers? Drawing from her successful career as a music producer (engineering hits like Prince’s “Purple Rain”), professor of cognitive neuroscience Susan Rogers reveals why your favorite songs move you. She explains that we each possess a unique “listener profile” based on our brain’s reaction to seven key dimensions of any record: authenticity, realism, novelty, melody, lyrics, rhythm, and timbre.
-
3 out of 5 stars
-
Needed to include the music
- By Sarah on 01-18-23
By: Ogi Ogas, and others
-
The Professor and the Madman
- By: Simon Winchester
- Narrated by: Simon Winchester
- Length: 7 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 5,249
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 4,044
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 4,059
Part history, part true-crime, and entirely entertaining, listen to the story of how the behemoth Oxford English Dictionary was made. You'll hang on every word as you discover that the dictionary's greatest contributor was also an insane murderer working from the confines of an asylum.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Perfect example of a quality audible book.
- By Jerry on 07-07-03
By: Simon Winchester
-
The Greater Journey
- Americans in Paris
- By: David McCullough
- Narrated by: Edward Herrmann
- Length: 16 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 3,387
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 2,805
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 2,804
The Greater Journey is the enthralling, inspiring—and until now, untold—story of the adventurous American artists, writers, doctors, politicians, architects, and others of high aspiration who set off for Paris in the years between 1830 and 1900, ambitious to excel in their work.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
McCullough takes it to the next level
- By gregory m loyd on 07-12-11
By: David McCullough
-
Mornings on Horseback
- By: David McCullough
- Narrated by: Nelson Runger
- Length: 19 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 1,539
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 1,320
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 1,315
Winner of the 1982 National Book Award for Biography, Mornings on Horseback is the brilliant biography of the young Theodore Roosevelt. Hailed as a masterpiece by Newsday, it is the story of a remarkable little boy -- seriously handicapped by recurrent and nearly fatal attacks of asthma -- and his struggle to manhood.
-
2 out of 5 stars
-
Did not like this one
- By Randall on 11-05-18
By: David McCullough
-
Mark Twain
- A Life
- By: Ron Powers
- Narrated by: Ron Powers
- Length: 10 hrs and 54 mins
- Abridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 120
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 77
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 76
Mark Twain founded the American voice. His works are a living national treasury: taught, quoted, and reprinted more than those of any writer except Shakespeare. His awestruck contemporaries saw him as the representative figure of his times, and his influence has deeply flavored the 20th and 21st centuries.
-
3 out of 5 stars
-
Buy the Book
- By W.Denis on 10-22-05
By: Ron Powers
-
The Ambulance Drivers
- Hemingway, Dos Passos, and a Friendship Made and Lost in War
- By: James McGrath Morris
- Narrated by: Dean Temple
- Length: 8 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 33
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 31
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 30
After meeting for the first time on the front lines of World War I, two aspiring writers forge an intense 20-year friendship and write some of America's greatest novels, giving voice to a "lost generation" shaken by war. Eager to find his way in life and words, John Dos Passos first witnessed the horror of trench warfare in France as a volunteer ambulance driver retrieving the dead and seriously wounded from the front line. Later in the war, he briefly met another young writer, Ernest Hemingway, who was just arriving for his service in the ambulance corps.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Morris always delivers interesting biographies...
- By NMwritergal on 04-08-17
-
The Voice is All
- The Lonely Victory of Jack Kerouac
- By: Joyce Johnson
- Narrated by: Carrington MacDuffie
- Length: 16 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 23
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 22
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 22
In The Voice Is All, Joyce Johnson - coauthor of the classic memoir Door Wide Open, about her relationship with Jack Kerouac - brilliantly peels away layers of the Kerouac legend to show how, caught between two cultures and two languages, he forged a voice to contain his dualities. Looking more deeply than previous biographers into how Kerouac's French Canadian background enriched his prose and gave him a unique outsider's vision of America, she tracks his development from boyhood through the phenomenal breakthroughs of 1951 that resulted in the composition of On the Road.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Kerouac's Voice
- By Robert L. Stofel on 09-26-12
By: Joyce Johnson
-
Charles Dickens and the Great Theatre of the World
- By: Simon Callow
- Narrated by: Simon Callow
- Length: 11 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 54
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 50
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 50
Dickens was one of the first true celebrity authors. Thousands of fans in Britain and America eagerly awaited each new installment of his stories, and flocked to see him on his legendary speaking tours. Not only did he create an incredible cast of characters on the page, but he was also a dazzling mimic and storyteller, and he wrote, stage-managed, and acted in plays for the public. Throughout his life, from his childhood performances to his legendarily powerful reading tours, Dickens was fanatical about the stage.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Loved it!
- By Tad Davis on 08-20-12
By: Simon Callow
-
Mencken
- the American Iconoclast: The Life and Times of the Bad Boy of Baltimore
- By: Marion Elizabeth Rodgers
- Narrated by: Patrick Cullen
- Length: 24 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 65
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 55
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 55
Rodgers vividly recreates Mencken's era: the glittering tapestry of turn-of-the-century America, the roaring twenties, depressed thirties, and the home front during World War II. But the heart of the book is Mencken.
-
3 out of 5 stars
-
a very detailed biography
- By D. Littman on 12-31-09
-
Everybody Behaves Badly
- The True Story Behind Hemingway's Masterpiece The Sun Also Rises
- By: Lesley Blume
- Narrated by: Jonathan Davis
- Length: 11 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 518
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 463
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 464
In the summer of 1925, Ernest Hemingway and a clique of raucous companions traveled to Pamplona, Spain, for the town's infamous running of the bulls. Then, over the next six weeks, he channeled that trip's maelstrom of drunken brawls, sexual rivalry, midnight betrayals, and midday hangovers into his groundbreaking novel The Sun Also Rises. This revolutionary work redefined modern literature as much as it did his peers, who would forever after be called the Lost Generation.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Great Author, Terrible Friend
- By Jeno B on 09-16-16
By: Lesley Blume
Publisher's summary
In the shadow of the Civil War, a circle of radicals in a rowdy saloon changed American society and helped set Walt Whitman on the path to poetic immortality.
Rebel Souls is the first book ever written about the colorful group of artists - regulars at Pfaff's Saloon in Manhattan - rightly considered America's original Bohemians. Besides a young Whitman, the circle included actor Edwin Booth; trailblazing stand–up comic Artemus Ward; psychedelic drug pioneer and author Fitz Hugh Ludlow; and brazen performer Adah Menken, famous for her Naked Lady routine. Central to their times, the artists managed to forge connections with Ralph Waldo Emerson, Mark Twain, and even Abraham Lincoln. This vibrant tale, packed with original research, offers the pleasures of a great group biography like The Banquet Years or The Metaphysical Club. Justin Martin shows how this first bohemian culture - imported from Paris to a dingy Broadway saloon - seeded and nurtured an American tradition of rebel art that thrives to this day.
More from the same
Related to this topic
-
Mark Twain
- A Life
- By: Ron Powers
- Narrated by: Ron Powers
- Length: 10 hrs and 54 mins
- Abridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 120
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 77
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 76
Mark Twain founded the American voice. His works are a living national treasury: taught, quoted, and reprinted more than those of any writer except Shakespeare. His awestruck contemporaries saw him as the representative figure of his times, and his influence has deeply flavored the 20th and 21st centuries.
-
3 out of 5 stars
-
Buy the Book
- By W.Denis on 10-22-05
By: Ron Powers
-
The Ambulance Drivers
- Hemingway, Dos Passos, and a Friendship Made and Lost in War
- By: James McGrath Morris
- Narrated by: Dean Temple
- Length: 8 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 33
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 31
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 30
After meeting for the first time on the front lines of World War I, two aspiring writers forge an intense 20-year friendship and write some of America's greatest novels, giving voice to a "lost generation" shaken by war. Eager to find his way in life and words, John Dos Passos first witnessed the horror of trench warfare in France as a volunteer ambulance driver retrieving the dead and seriously wounded from the front line. Later in the war, he briefly met another young writer, Ernest Hemingway, who was just arriving for his service in the ambulance corps.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Morris always delivers interesting biographies...
- By NMwritergal on 04-08-17
-
The Greater Journey
- Americans in Paris
- By: David McCullough
- Narrated by: Edward Herrmann
- Length: 16 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 3,387
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 2,805
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 2,804
The Greater Journey is the enthralling, inspiring—and until now, untold—story of the adventurous American artists, writers, doctors, politicians, architects, and others of high aspiration who set off for Paris in the years between 1830 and 1900, ambitious to excel in their work.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
McCullough takes it to the next level
- By gregory m loyd on 07-12-11
By: David McCullough
-
My Thoughts Be Bloody
- The Bitter Rivalry Between Edwin and John Wilkes Booth
- By: Nora Titone, Doris Kearns Goodwin - introduction/notes
- Narrated by: John B. Lloyd
- Length: 19 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 243
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 192
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 191
My Thoughts Be Bloody, a sweeping family saga, revives an extraordinary figure whose name has been missing, until now, from the story of President Lincoln's death. Edwin Booth, John Wilkes's older brother by four years, was in his day the biggest star of the American stage. Without an account of Edwin Booth, author Nora Titone argues, the real story of Lincoln's assassin has never been told.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Wonderful!
- By Tad Davis on 11-30-10
By: Nora Titone, and others
-
Empire of Self
- A Life of Gore Vidal
- By: Jay Parini
- Narrated by: John Lescault
- Length: 16 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 100
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 89
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 89
The product of 30 years of friendship and conversation, Jay Parini's Empire of Self probes behind the glittering surface of Gore Vidal's colorful life to reveal the complex emotional and sexual truth underlying his celebrity-strewn life. But there is plenty of glittering surface as well - a virtual who's who of the American Century, from Eleanor Roosevelt and Amelia Earhart through the Kennedys, Princess Margaret, and the creme de la creme of Hollywood.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Well done!
- By Christopher on 03-22-16
By: Jay Parini
-
Jack London
- An American Life
- By: Earle Labor
- Narrated by: Michael Prichard
- Length: 16 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 50
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 44
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 44
Jack London was born a working class, fatherless Californian in 1876. In his youth, he was a boundlessly energetic adventurer on the bustling West Coast - an oyster pirate, a hobo, a sailor, and a prospector by turns. He spent his brief life rapidly accumulating the experiences that would inform his acclaimed best-selling books The Call of the Wild, White Fang, and The Sea-Wolf.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Glad I chose this
- By SherryH on 04-14-19
By: Earle Labor
-
Mark Twain
- A Life
- By: Ron Powers
- Narrated by: Ron Powers
- Length: 10 hrs and 54 mins
- Abridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 120
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 77
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 76
Mark Twain founded the American voice. His works are a living national treasury: taught, quoted, and reprinted more than those of any writer except Shakespeare. His awestruck contemporaries saw him as the representative figure of his times, and his influence has deeply flavored the 20th and 21st centuries.
-
3 out of 5 stars
-
Buy the Book
- By W.Denis on 10-22-05
By: Ron Powers
-
The Ambulance Drivers
- Hemingway, Dos Passos, and a Friendship Made and Lost in War
- By: James McGrath Morris
- Narrated by: Dean Temple
- Length: 8 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 33
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 31
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 30
After meeting for the first time on the front lines of World War I, two aspiring writers forge an intense 20-year friendship and write some of America's greatest novels, giving voice to a "lost generation" shaken by war. Eager to find his way in life and words, John Dos Passos first witnessed the horror of trench warfare in France as a volunteer ambulance driver retrieving the dead and seriously wounded from the front line. Later in the war, he briefly met another young writer, Ernest Hemingway, who was just arriving for his service in the ambulance corps.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Morris always delivers interesting biographies...
- By NMwritergal on 04-08-17
-
The Greater Journey
- Americans in Paris
- By: David McCullough
- Narrated by: Edward Herrmann
- Length: 16 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 3,387
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 2,805
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 2,804
The Greater Journey is the enthralling, inspiring—and until now, untold—story of the adventurous American artists, writers, doctors, politicians, architects, and others of high aspiration who set off for Paris in the years between 1830 and 1900, ambitious to excel in their work.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
McCullough takes it to the next level
- By gregory m loyd on 07-12-11
By: David McCullough
-
My Thoughts Be Bloody
- The Bitter Rivalry Between Edwin and John Wilkes Booth
- By: Nora Titone, Doris Kearns Goodwin - introduction/notes
- Narrated by: John B. Lloyd
- Length: 19 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 243
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 192
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 191
My Thoughts Be Bloody, a sweeping family saga, revives an extraordinary figure whose name has been missing, until now, from the story of President Lincoln's death. Edwin Booth, John Wilkes's older brother by four years, was in his day the biggest star of the American stage. Without an account of Edwin Booth, author Nora Titone argues, the real story of Lincoln's assassin has never been told.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Wonderful!
- By Tad Davis on 11-30-10
By: Nora Titone, and others
-
Empire of Self
- A Life of Gore Vidal
- By: Jay Parini
- Narrated by: John Lescault
- Length: 16 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 100
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 89
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 89
The product of 30 years of friendship and conversation, Jay Parini's Empire of Self probes behind the glittering surface of Gore Vidal's colorful life to reveal the complex emotional and sexual truth underlying his celebrity-strewn life. But there is plenty of glittering surface as well - a virtual who's who of the American Century, from Eleanor Roosevelt and Amelia Earhart through the Kennedys, Princess Margaret, and the creme de la creme of Hollywood.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Well done!
- By Christopher on 03-22-16
By: Jay Parini
-
Jack London
- An American Life
- By: Earle Labor
- Narrated by: Michael Prichard
- Length: 16 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 50
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 44
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 44
Jack London was born a working class, fatherless Californian in 1876. In his youth, he was a boundlessly energetic adventurer on the bustling West Coast - an oyster pirate, a hobo, a sailor, and a prospector by turns. He spent his brief life rapidly accumulating the experiences that would inform his acclaimed best-selling books The Call of the Wild, White Fang, and The Sea-Wolf.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Glad I chose this
- By SherryH on 04-14-19
By: Earle Labor
-
When Paris Sizzled
- The 1920s Paris of Hemingway, Chanel, Cocteau, Cole Porter, Josephine Baker, and Their Friends
- By: Mary McAuliffe
- Narrated by: Saskia Maarleveld
- Length: 11 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 90
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 81
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 82
When Paris Sizzled vividly portrays the City of Light during the fabulous 1920s, les Annees folles, when Parisians emerged from the horrors of war to find that a new world greeted them - one that reverberated with the hard metallic clang of the assembly line, the roar of automobiles, and the beat of jazz. Mary McAuliffe traces a decade that saw seismic change on almost every front, from art and architecture to music, literature, fashion, entertainment, transportation, and, most notably, behavior.
-
3 out of 5 stars
-
Informative, but no sizzle
- By OzEnigma on 06-01-17
By: Mary McAuliffe
-
Nazi Literature in the Americas
- By: Roberto Bolaño, Chris Andrews - translator
- Narrated by: Jonathan Davis
- Length: 6 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 71
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 60
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 59
A tour de force of black humor and imaginary erudition, Nazi Literature in the Americas presents itself as a biographical dictionary of writers who espoused extreme right-wing ideologies in the 20th and 21st centuries.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Eerie and fascinating
- By Jikai Zenshin on 03-19-21
By: Roberto Bolaño, and others
-
Fryderyk Chopin
- A Life and Times
- By: Dr. Alan Walker
- Narrated by: Corrie James
- Length: 23 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 81
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 73
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 74
Based on 10 years of research and a vast cache of primary sources located in archives in Warsaw, Paris, London, New York, and Washington, D.C., Alan Walker's monumental Fryderyk Chopin: A Life and Times is the most comprehensive biography of the great Polish composer to appear in English in more than a century. Walker's work is a corrective biography, intended to dispel the many myths and legends that continue to surround Chopin.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
This book is a masterpiece
- By Carpe Diem on 02-09-19
By: Dr. Alan Walker
-
The Sun and the Moon
- Hoaxers, Showmen, and Lunar Man-Bats in 19th-Century New York
- By: Matthew Goodman
- Narrated by: Malcolm Hillgartner
- Length: 12 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 70
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 38
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 39
The Sun and the Moon tells the delightful and surprisingly true story of how a series of articles in the Sun newspaper in 1835 convinced the citizens of New York that the moon was inhabited. Purporting to reveal discoveries of a famous British astronomer, the series described such moon life as unicorns, beavers that walked upright, and four-foot-tall flying man-bats. It quickly became the most widely circulated newspaper story of the era.
-
3 out of 5 stars
-
some very good some very bad
- By peter on 10-30-10
By: Matthew Goodman
-
Grant's Final Victory
- Ulysses S. Grant's Heroic Last Year
- By: Charles Bracelen Flood
- Narrated by: Michael Prichard
- Length: 8 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 53
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 50
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 48
Shortly after losing all of his wealth in a terrible 1884 swindle, Ulysses S. Grant learned he had terminal throat and mouth cancer. Destitute and dying, Grant began to write his memoirs to save his family from permanent financial ruin. As Grant continued his work, suffering increasing pain, the American public became aware of this race between Grant's writing and his fatal illness. Twenty years after his respectful and magnanimous demeanor toward Robert E. Lee at Appomattox, people in the North and the South came to know Grant, now using his famous determination in this final effort.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
Great story, average narration
- By Tad Davis on 04-25-12
-
The Professor and the Madman
- By: Simon Winchester
- Narrated by: Simon Winchester
- Length: 7 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 5,249
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 4,044
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 4,059
Part history, part true-crime, and entirely entertaining, listen to the story of how the behemoth Oxford English Dictionary was made. You'll hang on every word as you discover that the dictionary's greatest contributor was also an insane murderer working from the confines of an asylum.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Perfect example of a quality audible book.
- By Jerry on 07-07-03
By: Simon Winchester
-
The Prince and the Pauper
- By: Mark Twain
- Narrated by: Steve West
- Length: 7 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 151
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 128
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 128
They look alike, but they live in very different worlds. Tom Canty, impoverished and abused by his father, is fascinated with royalty. Edward Tudor, heir to the throne of England, is kind and generous but wants to run free and play in the river - just once. How insubstantial their differences truly are becomes clear when a chance encounter leads to an exchange of clothing - and roles. The pauper finds himself caught up in the pomp and folly of the royal court, and the prince wanders horror-stricken through the lower strata of English society.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Wonderful author, terrific narrator, splendid book
- By Rahni on 10-01-17
By: Mark Twain
-
And So It Goes
- Kurt Vonnegut: A Life
- By: Charles J. Shields
- Narrated by: Fred Berman
- Length: 17 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 79
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 73
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 75
New York Times best-selling author and biographer Charles J. Shields crafts this fascinating portrait of literary icon Kurt Vonnegut. The first authorized biography of the influential American writer, And So It Goes examines Vonnegut’s life, from his childhood to his death in 2007, and explores how the author changed the conversation of American literature.
-
3 out of 5 stars
-
Probably only for die hard Vonnegut fans
- By Watery M on 12-22-12
-
Mark Twain: Man in White
- The Grand Adventure of His Final Years
- By: Michael Shelden
- Narrated by: Andrew Garman
- Length: 17 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 90
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 65
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 66
Pulitzer Prize finalist Michael Shelden illuminates Mark Twain’s twilight years in this brilliant account of the legendary author’s life. Drawing heavily on Twain’s own letters and journals, Mark Twain: Man in White recounts both Twain’s private family experiences and his larger-than-life public image.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Fantastic book
- By Tad Davis on 08-23-10
By: Michael Shelden
-
The Voice is All
- The Lonely Victory of Jack Kerouac
- By: Joyce Johnson
- Narrated by: Carrington MacDuffie
- Length: 16 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 23
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 22
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 22
In The Voice Is All, Joyce Johnson - coauthor of the classic memoir Door Wide Open, about her relationship with Jack Kerouac - brilliantly peels away layers of the Kerouac legend to show how, caught between two cultures and two languages, he forged a voice to contain his dualities. Looking more deeply than previous biographers into how Kerouac's French Canadian background enriched his prose and gave him a unique outsider's vision of America, she tracks his development from boyhood through the phenomenal breakthroughs of 1951 that resulted in the composition of On the Road.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Kerouac's Voice
- By Robert L. Stofel on 09-26-12
By: Joyce Johnson
-
The Last Love Song
- A Biography of Joan Didion
- By: Tracy Daugherty
- Narrated by: Bernadette Dunne
- Length: 26 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 77
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 65
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 65
Joan Didion lived a life in the public and private eye with her late husband, writer John Gregory Dunne, whom she met while the two were working in New York City, when Didion was at Vogue and Dunne was writing for Time. They became wildly successful writing partners when they moved to Los Angeles and cowrote screenplays and adaptations together. Didion is well known for her literary journalistic style in both fiction and nonfiction.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Riveted for 1591 miles
- By Kaysi12 on 04-11-16
By: Tracy Daugherty
-
I Am Dynamite!
- A Life of Nietzsche
- By: Sue Prideaux
- Narrated by: Nicholas Guy Smith
- Length: 17 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 329
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 286
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 284
Nietzsche wrote that all philosophy is autobiographical, and in this vividly compelling, myth-shattering biography, Sue Prideaux brings listeners into the world of this brilliant, eccentric, and deeply troubled man, illuminating the events and people that shaped his life and work. I Am Dynamite! is the essential biography for anyone seeking to understand history's most misunderstood philosopher.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Fascinating; tragic
- By Cineaste21 on 12-30-18
By: Sue Prideaux
What listeners say about Rebel Souls
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall5 out of 5 stars
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars
-
Story5 out of 5 stars
- John Semlak
- 11-28-17
Colorful history of 19th century literary misfits
This book is a history of several literary figures who were regular patrons of Pfaffs Saloon, a mid-nineteenth century literary hangout in the area that would become Greenwich Village. It follows the lives and careers of Walt Whitman as well as several other figures in the literary circle around Pfaffs. The book is full of colorful detail, and is filled with quotes from literary sources of the time. It's a great account of New York's early literary scene as well as a biography of several characters who were part of Whitman's literary circle.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall5 out of 5 stars
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars
-
Story5 out of 5 stars
- William McCarty
- 04-20-24
Great trip into pre "gay" history
Well told, fast pace look at Pfaff's and the group of artists that supported each other.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall5 out of 5 stars
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars
-
Story5 out of 5 stars
- A
- 11-11-15
A Wonderful Read with Vibrant Characters
What a fantastic book! I chose this after reading Justin Martin's biography of Frederick Law Olmsted. That book was a little on the slow side, but this one moves like a freight train. It's filled with zany characters and the portrait of Walt Whitman that arises is so tender and moving. I was sad when the book was over. Simply superb.
The reader is fairly average. He reads ponderously and worse, there are a lot of French words and phrases in the book and he butchers them.
Still that doesn't detract too much from this great read.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
3 people found this helpful
-
Overall5 out of 5 stars
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars
-
Story5 out of 5 stars
- Sudo Mayhap
- 06-08-18
great book
What a journey! not only about WW, but the entire bohemian gang, including an assortment of characters less known. will put you right there with them.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars
-
Story4 out of 5 stars
- Phil F.
- 10-07-22
A nice contribution to Whitman scholarship
This is a nice, solid, and much needed construction to Whitman scholarship. I will be listening to it again, probably many times in the future. Yet, weirdly, unfortunately, in the end the book has the tone of a morality tale.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!