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Half Broke Horses
- A True-Life Novel
- Narrated by: Jeannette Walls
- Length: 7 hrs and 55 mins
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Half Broke Horses
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Editorial reviews
Based on the true story of the life of Jeanette Walls’ grandmother, Half-broke Horses is the endearing tale of Lily Casey Smith, a woman born into poverty in the early 1900s frontier of west Texas. Intelligent, despite her spotted 8th grade education, Smith knows her purpose on earth is more than just breaking-in horses on her daddy’s farm and she sets off across the desert at age 15 to teach children in Arizona. Smith is scrappy and independent, clearly a woman before her time. In her early 20s when she learns that the traveling salesman she married actually already has a wife and kids, she puts her six-shooter revolver with the pearl handle in her purse and hits him with it, giving him a good “pistol-whippin’”.
Walls, the best-selling author of her own memoir The Glass Castle, tells her grandmother’s story in a matter-of-fact, no-nonsense way probably much in same way as her grandmother shared these stories with her. It can be shocking that Smith speaks of her best friend’s death in the same tone as she does of, say, playing a hand of poker, but it’s realistic a snapshot of the era. In her narration, Walls’ accent is a bit mottled a little southern, with hints of other dialects thrown in which can be distracting at times, but it also suits Smith, a girl from west Texas who had an Irish father with a speech impediment.
Smith does find true happiness with her second husband and eventually settles down (if you can call selling whiskey during Prohibition by hiding it under her baby’s crib “settling down”). But this heroine’s adventures racing horses, surviving flash floods and tornadoes, and playing poker will stick with you long after Walls has finished describing them. Colleen Oakley
Publisher's summary
2010 Audie Award Finalist for Narration by the Author
Jeannette Walls's memoir The Glass Castle was "nothing short of spectacular" ( Entertainment Weekly). Now, in Half Broke Horses, she brings us the story of her grandmother, told in a first-person voice that is authentic, irresistible, and triumphant.
"Those old cows knew trouble was coming before we did." So begins the story of Lily Casey Smith, Jeannette Walls's no nonsense, resourceful, and spectacularly compelling grandmother. By age six, Lily was helping her father break horses. At 15, she left home to teach in a frontier town - riding 500 miles on her pony, alone, to get to her job. She learned to drive a car ("I loved cars even more than I loved horses. They didn't need to be fed if they weren't working, and they didn't leave big piles of manure all over the place") and fly a plane. And, with her husband Jim, she ran a vast ranch in Arizona. She raised two children, one of whom is Jeannette's memorable mother, Rosemary Smith Walls, unforgettably portrayed in The Glass Castle.
Lily survived tornadoes, droughts, floods, the Great Depression, and the most heartbreaking personal tragedy. She bristled at prejudice of all kinds -- against women, Native Americans, and anyone else who didn't fit the mold. Rosemary Smith Walls always told Jeannette that she was like her grandmother, and in this true-life novel, Jeannette Walls channels that kindred spirit.
Half Broke Horses is Laura Ingalls Wilder for adults, as riveting and dramatic as Isak Dinesen's Out of Africa or Beryl Markham's West with the Night. Destined to become a classic, it will transfix audiences everywhere.
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>In 1938, 19-year-old cowboy Bud Frazer sets his sights on becoming a stunt rider in the movies. Fantasizing about rubbing shoulders with the great screen cowboys of his youth, he leaves his home in Echol Creek, Oregon, and heads for Hollywood. On the long bus ride south, Bud meets a young woman who also harbors dreams of making it in the movies, though not as a starlet but as a writer, a real writer.
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5 out of 5 stars
-
Good
- By MJ Strub on 10-26-23
By: Molly Gloss
-
That Old Ace in the Hole
- By: Annie Proulx
- Narrated by: Tom Stechschulte
- Length: 14 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 180
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 160
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 158
Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award winner Annie Proulx's That Old Ace in the Hole is told through the eyes of Bob Dollar, a young Denver man trying to make good in a bad world. Dollar is out of college but aimless, when he takes a job with Global Pork Rind - his task to locate big spreads of land in the Texas and Oklahoma panhandles that can be purchased by the corporation and converted to hog farms.
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2 out of 5 stars
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Doesn't work as a novel
- By Sarah C on 05-30-12
By: Annie Proulx
-
The Hearts of Horses
- A Novel
- By: Molly Gloss
- Narrated by: Renée Raudman
- Length: 9 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 252
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 196
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 195
The irresistible tale of 19-year-old Martha Lessen, a female horse whisperer trying to make a go of it in a man's world. It was thought that the only way to break a horse was to buck the wild out of it, and broken ribs and tough falls just went with the job. But over several long, hard winter months, many of the townsfolk in this remote county of eastern Oregon witness Martha's way of talking in low, sweet tones to horses believed beyond repair---and getting miraculous, almost immediate results.
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5 out of 5 stars
-
Simple, Honest, Wonderful
- By Julie W. Capell on 11-08-09
By: Molly Gloss
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Hard Country
- A Novel
- By: Michael McGarrity
- Narrated by: George Guidall
- Length: 15 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 2,587
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 2,351
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 2,335
National best-selling author and New Mexico native Michael McGarrity takes listeners to the wild territory of the late 19th-century American Southwest for this epic tale. After the deaths of his wife and brother, John Kerney gives up his West Texas ranch and heads south in search of a new home. Soon Kerney is offered work trailing cattle to the New Mexico Territory - a job that will forever change his life.
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5 out of 5 stars
-
Hard Country lives up to it's title.
- By mar on 12-14-12
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This House of Sky
- Landscapes of a Western Mind
- By: Ivan Doig
- Narrated by: Tom Stechschulte
- Length: 11 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 388
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 326
-
Story5 out of 5 stars 321
A nominee for the National Book Award, Ivan Doig's brilliant memoir shares the experiences and culture that shaped his early years and made him fall in love with the West. From his childhood in a family of homesteaders through the death of his mother and his move to Montana to herd sheep, Doig shows his intimate connection with the American West.
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4 out of 5 stars
-
Early work by a favorite author
- By Doggy Bird on 09-06-14
By: Ivan Doig
-
The Meadow
- By: James Galvin
- Narrated by: Patrick Lawlor
- Length: 6 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 76
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 60
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 62
In short vignettes, Galvin gives us a deeply personal portrait of the people who lived in a mountain meadow along the Colorado-Wyoming border over its hundred-year history. His portraits illuminate the Western character and evolve a sense of place like no other.
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5 out of 5 stars
-
Reading the Meadow is almost like reading a poem..
- By Shelby Stephens on 04-30-12
By: James Galvin
-
Close Range
- Wyoming Stories (Selected Unabridged Stories)
- By: Annie Proulx
- Narrated by: Frances Fisher, Bruce Greenwood, Campbell Scott
- Length: 5 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 205
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 117
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 119
Annie Proulx's masterful language and fierce love of Wyoming are evident in this collection of stories about loneliness, quick violence, and wrong kinds of love. In "The Mud Below", a rodeo rider's obsession marks the deepening fissures between his family life and self-imposed isolation. In "The Half-Skinned Steer", an elderly fool drives west to the ranch he grew up on for his brother's funeral, and dies a mile from home.
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5 out of 5 stars
-
A Wonderfully Ironic and Surprising Read
- By Susan L. Stewart on 04-21-12
By: Annie Proulx
-
Deep Creek
- Finding Hope in the High Country
- By: Pam Houston
- Narrated by: Pam Houston
- Length: 10 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 638
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 551
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 549
On her 120-acre homestead high in the Colorado Rockies, beloved writer Pam Houston learns what it means to care for a piece of land and the creatures on it. Elk calves and bluebirds mark the changing seasons, winter temperatures drop to 35 below, and lightning sparks a 110,000-acre wildfire, threatening her century-old barn and all its inhabitants. Through her travels from the Gulf of Mexico to Alaska, she explores what ties her to the Earth, the ranch most of all.
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5 out of 5 stars
-
The most beautiful book I’ve ever read
- By KFratt on 04-26-19
By: Pam Houston
-
God's Middle Finger
- Into the Lawless Heart of the Sierra Madre
- By: Richard Grant
- Narrated by: Gildart Jackson
- Length: 10 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 108
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 96
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 94
The rules of law and society have never taken hold in the Sierra Madre, which is home to bandits, drug smugglers, cave-dwelling Tarahumara Indians, opium farmers, and other assorted outcasts. Outsiders are not welcome; drugs are the primary source of income; murder is all but a regional pastime. Fifteen years ago, journalist Richard Grant developed what he calls "an unfortunate fascination" with this lawless place. Locals warned that he would meet his death there, but he didn't believe them - until his last trip.
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3 out of 5 stars
-
Wrong reader
- By Phikeia on 01-05-22
By: Richard Grant
-
Claiming Ground
- By: Laura Bell
- Narrated by: Laurie Birmingham
- Length: 7 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 37
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 31
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 29
A transcendent memoir from an author of rare talent, Laura Bell’s Claiming Ground recounts Bell’s time living mostly alone in the hills of Wyoming, where she herded sheep and cattle and battled isolation. A journey to the heart of self, Bell’s work sparkles with shimmering prose and remarkable insight.
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4 out of 5 stars
-
Beautiful writing
- By Rand Hall on 11-01-16
By: Laura Bell
-
The Missing
- By: Tim Gautreaux
- Narrated by: Henry Strozier
- Length: 15 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 64
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 32
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 32
In this spellbinder by critically acclaimed author Tim Gautreaux, Sam Simoneaux returns from World War I to rebuild his life. But when a girl is snatched from the New Orleans department store where he's working, he hops aboard a Mississippi steamboat to find her - and dredges up ghosts from his painful past.
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5 out of 5 stars
-
The Missing
- By Michael L. Wintory on 07-11-09
By: Tim Gautreaux
-
The Longest Road
- Overland in Search of America, from Key West to the Arctic Ocean
- By: Philip Caputo
- Narrated by: Pete Larkin
- Length: 11 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 122
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 108
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 107
Philip Caputo, who had just turned 70, his wife, and their two English setters took off in a truck hauling an Airstream camper from Key West, Florida, en route via back roads and state routes to Deadhorse, Alaska. The journey took four months and covered 17,000 miles, during which Caputo interviewed more than 80 Americans from all walks of life to get a picture of what their lives and the life of the nation are really about in the 21st century.
-
1 out of 5 stars
-
Very Disappointing
- By Amazon Customer on 03-25-18
By: Philip Caputo
-
She Got Up Off the Couch
- By: Haven Kimmel
- Narrated by: Haven Kimmel
- Length: 8 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 274
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 186
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 187
When we last saw Zippy, she was oblivious to the storm that was brewing in her home. Her mother, Delonda, had literally just gotten up off the couch and ridden her rickety bicycle down the road. Her dad was off somewhere, gambling or "working." And Zippy was lost in her own fabulous world of exploring the fringes of Moorland, Indiana.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
Great fun !!
- By Kim on 04-20-11
By: Haven Kimmel
-
The Plague of Doves
- By: Louise Erdrich
- Narrated by: Peter Francis James, Kathleen McInerney
- Length: 11 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 512
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 363
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 361
The unsolved murder of a farm family haunts the small, white, off-reservation town of Pluto, North Dakota. The vengeance exacted for this crime and the subsequent distortions of truth transform the lives of Ojibwe living on the nearby reservation and shape the passions of both communities for the next generation.
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1 out of 5 stars
-
Avoid this Plague
- By Andre on 05-16-08
By: Louise Erdrich
-
Coop
- A Year of Poultry, Pigs, and Parenting
- By: Michael Perry
- Narrated by: Michael Perry
- Length: 10 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 227
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 210
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 209
Last seen sleeping off his wedding night in the back of a 1951 International Harvester pickup, Michael Perry is now living in a rickety Wisconsin farmhouse. Faced with 37 acres of fallen fences and overgrown fields, and informed by his pregnant wife that she intends to deliver their baby at home, Perry plumbs his unorthodox childhood - his city-bred parents took in more than 100 foster children while running a ramshackle dairy farm - for clues to how to proceed as a farmer, a husband, and a father.
-
3 out of 5 stars
-
Meh
- By dpenney on 12-22-16
By: Michael Perry
-
Father and I Were Ranchers
- Little Britches # 1
- By: Ralph Moody
- Narrated by: Cameron Beierle
- Length: 8 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 1,948
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 1,600
-
Story5 out of 5 stars 1,601
The Moody family moves from New Hampshire to a Colorado ranch. Experience the pleasures and perils of ranching in 20th Century America, through the eyes of a youngster.
-
1 out of 5 stars
-
Very dissappointed , too much cussing.
- By Lovelessnomore on 05-29-15
By: Ralph Moody
-
How I Got This Way
- By: Patrick McManus
- Narrated by: Norman Dietz
- Length: 7 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 342
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 286
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 288
Grab your fishing net and hold onto your funny-bone; you're in for a hilarious romp through the woods with best-selling funnyman Patrick McManus. How I Got This Way is a rib-tickling collection of stories about the outdoors guaranteed to leave you chuckling. Join McManus and his pals on a venture into the Idaho wilderness that includes taking a hike with - ahem - the president of the United States.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Mark Twain meets Bertie Wooster
- By Snoodely on 07-22-12
By: Patrick McManus
-
Ava's Man
- By: Rick Bragg
- Narrated by: Rick Bragg
- Length: 5 hrs and 26 mins
- Abridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 652
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 450
-
Story5 out of 5 stars 447
With the same emotional generosity and effortlessly compelling storytelling that made All Over But the Shoutin’ a beloved bestseller, Rick Bragg continues his personal history of the Deep South. This time he’s writing about his grandfather Charlie Bundrum, a man who died before Bragg was born but left an indelible imprint on the people who loved him. Drawing on their memories, Bragg reconstructs the life of an unlettered roofer who kept food on his family’s table through the worst of the Great Depression
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Deeply moving
- By Kate on 08-12-03
By: Rick Bragg
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1 out of 5 stars
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After rising from poverty to earn two Ivy League degrees, an Appalachian lawyer pays tribute to the strong "hill women" who raised and inspired her, and whose values have the potential to rejuvenate a struggling region - an uplifting and eye-opening memoir for fans of Hillbilly Elegy and Educated.
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2 out of 5 stars
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Too Political
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Ruth Wariner was the 39th of her father's 42 children. Growing up on a farm in rural Mexico, where authorities turned a blind eye to the practices of her community, Ruth lives in a ramshackle house without indoor plumbing or electricity. At church, preachers teach that God will punish the wicked by destroying the world and that women can ascend to heaven only by entering into polygamous marriages and giving birth to as many children as possible.
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Gypsies, faith-healers, moonshiners, and snake handlers weave through Drema's childhood in 1940s Appalachia after her father is killed in the coal mines, her mother goes off to work as a Rosie the Riveter, and she is left in the care of devout Pentecostal grandparents. What follows is a spitfire of a memoir that feels like a novel with intrigue, sweeping emotion, and indisputable charm. Drema's coming of age is colored by tent revivals with Grandpa, poetry-writing hobos, and traveling carnivals, and through it all, she serves witness to a multi-generational family.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Narrator’s attempt at a southern accent distracting to story
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Sallie Kincaid is the daughter of the biggest man in a small town, the charismatic Duke Kincaid. Born at the turn of the 20th century into a life of comfort and privilege, Sallie remembers little about her mother who died in a violent argument with the Duke. By the time she is just eight years old, the Duke has remarried and had a son, Eddie. While Sallie is her father’s daughter, sharp-witted and resourceful, Eddie is his mother’s son, timid and cerebral. When Sallie tries to teach young Eddie to be more like their father, her daredevil coaching leads to an accident, and Sallie is cast out.
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Narrator’s attempt at a southern accent distracting to story
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Angela's Ashes
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 7,822
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 7,817
Why we think it’s a great listen: There’s no gentle way to put this – Frank McCourt’s performance of Angela’s Ashes is just better than the Pulitzer Prize-winning book. Frank McCourt shares his sometimes heartwarming, sometimes heartbreaking story of growing up poor, Irish, and Catholic in the Pulitzer Prize-winning memoir Angela's Ashes.
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5 out of 5 stars
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A classic book *and* a classic audiobook
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Story3.5 out of 5 stars 282
In the winter of 1897, Elspeth Howell treks across miles of snow and ice to the isolated farmstead in upstate New York where she and her husband have raised their five children. Her midwife's salary is tucked into the toes of her boots, and her pack is full of gifts for her family. But as she crests the final hill, and sees her darkened house and a smokeless chimney, immediately she knows that an unthinkable crime has destroyed the life she so carefully built.
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3 out of 5 stars
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A Beautiful, Bitter Pill
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 99
In the tradition of Frank McCourt’s Angela’s Ashes and Alice Taylor’s To School Through the Fields, Tom Phelan’s We Were Rich and We Didn't Know It is a heartfelt and masterfully written memoir of growing up in Ireland in the 1940s. We Were Rich and We Didn't Know It recounts Tom’s upbringing in an isolated, rural community from the day he was delivered by the local midwife. With tears and laughter, it speaks to the strength of the human spirit in the face of life's adversities.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Warning: you'll laugh and cry
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Etched in Sand
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In this story of perseverance in the face of adversity, Regina Calcaterra recounts her childhood in foster care and on the streets and how she and her savvy crew of homeless siblings managed to survive years of homelessness, abandonment, and abuse. Regina Calcaterra's emotionally powerful memoir reveals how she endured a series of foster homes and intermittent homelessness in the shadow of the Hamptons, and how she rose above her past while fighting to keep her brother and three sisters together.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Big eye-opener about our Foster Care system
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'Tis
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Listen as Frank tells in his own inimitable voice his story of how at the age of 19 he traveled from Limerick to New York in pursuit of the American dream. Despite the abundance of unsolicited advice he gets to "join the cops" and "stick to his own kind", Frank knows that he should educate himself and somehow rise above his circumstances.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Marvelous
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Out of the Darkness
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- By: Eric A. Shelman
- Narrated by: Deb Thomas
- Length: 11 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 370
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 335
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 331
In New York City, in April of 1874, a most unusual event took place. A severely abused nine-year-old girl named Mary Ellen Wilson became the first child in America to be rescued from an abusive home. She had been beaten, burned, slashed with scissors, locked in a closet, and had never been outside of her tenement home in over 7 years. Thanks to the concern and dedication of a missionary named Etta Wheeler, the child was finally saved from her cruel captors.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Harrowing Story
- By musa on 03-21-17
By: Eric A. Shelman
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North of Normal
- A Memoir of My Wilderness Childhood, My Unusual Family, and How I Survived Both
- By: Cea Sunrise Person
- Narrated by: Cea Sunrise Person
- Length: 9 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 982
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 878
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 872
In the late 1960s, riding the crest of the counterculture movement, Cea's family left a comfortable existence in California to live off the land in the Canadian wilderness. But unlike most commune dwellers of the time, the Persons weren't trying to build a new society - they wanted to escape civilization altogether. Led by Cea's grandfather Dick, they lived a pot-smoking, free-loving, clothing-optional life under a canvas tipi without running water, electricity, or heat for the bitter winters.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Entertaining but Frustrating
- By Nikki on 09-01-21
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Enemy Women
- By: Paulette Jiles
- Narrated by: Reba Buhr
- Length: 10 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 222
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 195
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 197
The Colley family is made of modest farmers in the Missouri Ozarks. Although Southerners, the Colleys try to remain neutral, a fact ignored by the Union militia who confiscate their livestock, burn their farm, and arrest their daughter, Adair, on charges of “enemy collaboration”. Yet as this innocent young woman soon discovers, fate can have a double edge. While imprisoned, she falls in love with her interrogator, a Union major who helps her escape.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Might be better to read this one
- By sssnoo on 10-31-20
By: Paulette Jiles
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If the Creek Don't Rise
- By: Leah Weiss
- Narrated by: Tom Stechschulte, Kate Forbes
- Length: 9 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 699
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 622
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Story4 out of 5 stars 626
In a North Carolina mountain town filled with moonshine and rotten husbands, Sadie Blue is only the latest girl to face a dead-end future at the mercy of a dangerous drunk. She's been married to Roy Tupkin for 15 days, and she knows now that she should have listened to the folks who said he was trouble. But when a stranger sweeps in and knocks the world off-kilter for everyone in town, Sadie begins to think there might be more to life than being Roy's wife.
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3 out of 5 stars
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The story never fully evolved
- By Samantha Russell on 08-14-19
By: Leah Weiss
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Appalachian Daughter
- By: Mary Jane Salyers
- Narrated by: Bailey Carr
- Length: 8 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 384
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 349
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 348
On the last day of eighth grade, Maggie begins to dream of finding a way to escape the drudgery and confinement of life in the hollow and establish her independence. Her plan begins to fall in place when she enters high school and discovers she has a natural talent for excelling in shorthand, typing, and other business classes. Meanwhile she spares no effort in helping her family continue to survive despite their poverty, a less than fertile few acres, and a family history of instability.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Heartwarming story
- By G'amazing on 12-22-19
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A Short History of Women
- By: Kate Walbert
- Narrated by: Nicola Barber, Ruth Moore, Kathleen McInerney, and others
- Length: 8 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall3 out of 5 stars 22
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 9
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Story3.5 out of 5 stars 8
The novel opens in England in 1915, at the deathbed of Dorothy Townsend, a suffragist and one of the first women to integrate Cambridge University. Her decision to starve herself for the cause informs and echoes in the later, overlapping narratives of her descendants.
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1 out of 5 stars
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Please End
- By ns on 09-30-10
By: Kate Walbert
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The Hearts of Horses
- A Novel
- By: Molly Gloss
- Narrated by: Renée Raudman
- Length: 9 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 252
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 196
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Story4 out of 5 stars 195
The irresistible tale of 19-year-old Martha Lessen, a female horse whisperer trying to make a go of it in a man's world. It was thought that the only way to break a horse was to buck the wild out of it, and broken ribs and tough falls just went with the job. But over several long, hard winter months, many of the townsfolk in this remote county of eastern Oregon witness Martha's way of talking in low, sweet tones to horses believed beyond repair---and getting miraculous, almost immediate results.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Simple, Honest, Wonderful
- By Julie W. Capell on 11-08-09
By: Molly Gloss
What listeners say about Half Broke Horses
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Kathy W.
- 03-25-24
Lily's life
I loved the book! I will follow this author for a very long time.
I think her voice is wonderful to listen to. it's not monotoned like so many audio books are. She brings her Grandmother to life for sure.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
- Tracey
- 10-15-09
Every Bit As Good As The Glass Castle
I loved Jeanette's voice in telling this tale and am so delighted she chose to do it herself. That twangy and fiesty tone really set the pace to portray her dear old Grandma.
This book is every bit as good as The Glass Castle and is written so well, with such insight and detail and feeling, I, at times, felt as though I were right there at the kitchen table, having a cup of tea and a chat with the family as Lily waves her choppers around to show them off.
Jeanette, I really love your writing and truely admire how you turned your life around and became the successful writer you are today. It's all very amazing and profoundly inspiring.
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19 people found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Cari B
- 01-15-19
Great listen!
I loved this book! The author has an incredible way of putting you right there.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Anna Schild
- 03-27-20
Love it !!
I couldn’t stop listening to it .. Lilly Casey had me from the beginning . So determined !
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Korina smith
- 10-13-17
Loved it!<br />Wanted to listen to it in one sitting.
The narration was fantastic and I loved the story. The characters almost haunted me. I couldn't wait to hear what happened next.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- E.S.
- 01-20-16
Excellent!
Would you consider the audio edition of Half Broke Horses to be better than the print version?
I loved this story and the characters, and I think Jeannette Walls does a fantastic job performing her own writing.
What was one of the most memorable moments of Half Broke Horses?
When Lily decides to enter the political realm and storms into the governor's office, I laughed out loud. This woman is inspiring.
Have you listened to any of Jeannette Walls’s other performances before? How does this one compare?
I listened to and read The Glass Castle, and loved that too.
If you could rename Half Broke Horses, what would you call it?
The title is perfect as is.
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- Kimberly Hoover
- 08-21-18
Terrific snapshot into early 20th century life in the West.
The story is told in a journalistic fashion without fluff. The life described is hard tack and authentic. Also sheds a lot of light on Rose Mary of The Glass Castle.
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance3 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- Judy Scott
- 09-19-17
I enjoyed this book most of the time
Would you listen to Half Broke Horses again? Why?
I probably won't listen to this book again.
What did you like best about this story?
It was an interesting story.
What did you like about the performance? What did you dislike?
I wasn't impressed with the performance. Jeannette Walls is a better author than a reader.
Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?
The story about her friend Molly was interesting.
Any additional comments?
I kept expecting something dramatic to happen or at least that there would be a moral at the end of the story. It was really just a story about a woman's life.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- wookie's mom
- 06-24-15
WHAT A RIDE!!
My daughter suggested this book to me and she has excellent taste!! This story is amazing. I enjoyed it immensely! The things she does to survive is amazing. Lily tries her hand at everything and succeeds at most things. I was sad when she let go of one of her dreams. Give this book a try, I don't think you will be disappointed!
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Mary
- 02-26-15
inspirational character
Lily Casey Smith is a true survivor and this novel presents her varied, tough and happy life in a wonderfully engaging manner. loved it.
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