-
Shadow Country
- A New Rendering of the Watson Legend
- Narrated by: Anthony Heald
- Length: 40 hrs and 20 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
Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Buy for $31.16
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
Publisher's summary
National Book Award, Fiction, 2008
Inspired by a near-mythic event on the wild Florida frontier at the turn of the 20th century, Shadow Country re-imagines the legend of the inspired Everglades sugar planter and notorious outlaw E. J. Watson, who drives himself relentlessly toward his own violent end at the hands of neighbors who mostly admired him, in a killing that obsessed his favorite son.Shadow Country transverses strange landscapes inhabited by Americans of every provenance and color, including the black and Indian inheritors of archaic racism that "still casts its shadow over the nation."
Critic reviews
"Magnificent and capacious....the book took my sleeve and like the ancient mariner would not let go....a breathtaking saga." ( Los Angeles Times)
"[Watson] comes across as nothing short of iconic....it's difficult to find another figure in American literature so thoroughly and convincingly portrayed." ( Publishers Weekly)
More from the same
Related to this topic
-
Crockett of Tennessee
- A Novel Based on the Life and Times of David Crockett
- By: Cameron Judd
- Narrated by: Allan Robertson
- Length: 17 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From humble beginnings in rural Tennessee to his heroic death defending the Alamo, frontiersman, adventurer, and politician David Davy Crockett embodies the spirit and ideals of the national character. Even during his lifetime, tales of the sharpshooting, skilled woodsman were - to his delight - told, retold, and elaborated on. As a US congressman, the former Creek War militiaman steadfastly opposed President Andrew Jackson's Indian Removal Act.
-
-
I highly recommend
- By That Man They Call Shad on 05-05-21
By: Cameron Judd
-
Mudbound
- By: Hillary Jordan
- Narrated by: Ezra Knight, Kate Forbes, Joseph Collins, and others
- Length: 9 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Hillary Jordan's mesmerizing debut novel won the Bellwether Prize for fiction. A powerful piece of Southern literature, Mudbound takes on prejudice in its myriad forms on a Mississippi Delta farm in 1946. City girl Laura McAllen attempts to raise her family despite questionable decisions made by her husband. Tensions continue to rise when her brother-in-law and the son of a family of sharecroppers both return from WWII as changed men bearing the scars of combat.
-
-
May this South never rise again.
- By Betty on 03-25-12
By: Hillary Jordan
-
Epitaph
- A Novel of the O.K. Corral
- By: Mary Doria Russell
- Narrated by: Hillary Huber
- Length: 19 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A deeply divided nation. Vicious politics. A shamelessly partisan media. A president loathed by half the populace. Smuggling and gang warfare along the Mexican border. Armed citizens willing to stand their ground and take law into their own hands.... That was America in 1881. All those forces came to bear on the afternoon of October 26, when Doc Holliday and the Earp brothers faced off against the Clantons and the McLaurys in Tombstone, Arizona. It should have been a simple misdemeanor arrest.
-
-
SO GOOD!
- By Cait on 06-30-15
-
Left at the Altar
- By: Margaret Brownley
- Narrated by: Kate Forbes
- Length: 10 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the wild and untamed West, time is set by the local jeweler but Two-Time Texas has two: two feuding jewelers and two wildly conflicting time zones. Meg Lockwood's marriage was supposed to unite the families and finally bring peace. But when she's left at the altar by her no-good fiancé, Meg's dreams of dragging her quarrelsome neighbors into a ceasefire are dashed.
-
-
Great Book
- By Kmacy on 01-15-24
-
Sometimes a Great Notion
- By: Ken Kesey
- Narrated by: Tom Stechschulte
- Length: 30 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A literary icon sometimes seen as a bridge between the Beat Generation and the hippies, Ken Kesey scored an unexpected hit with his first novel, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. His successful follow-up, Sometimes a Great Notion, was also transformed into a major motion picture, directed by and starring Paul Newman. Here, Oregon’s Stamper family does what it can to survive a bitter strike dividing their tiny logging community. And as tensions rise, delicate family bonds begin to fray and unravel.
-
-
Sometimes a Great Novel Pops up out of Nowhere
- By Mr. Eyuz on 06-07-19
By: Ken Kesey
-
Rhett Butler's People
- By: Donald McCaig
- Narrated by: John Bedford Lloyd
- Length: 18 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The publication of Rhett Butler's People marks a major and historic cultural event. Through the storytelling mastery of award-winning writer Donald McCaig, the life and times of the dashing Rhett Butler unfolds. Through Rhett's eyes we meet the people who shaped his larger than life personality as it sprang from Margaret Mitchell: Langston Butler, Rhett's unyielding father; Rosemary his steadfast sister; Tunis Bonneau, Rhett's best friend and a onetime slave; Belle Watling, the woman for whom Rhett cared long before he met Scarlett O'Hara at Twelve Oaks Plantation, on the fateful eve of the Civil War.
-
-
Unconvincing
- By FMS on 04-10-19
By: Donald McCaig
-
Crockett of Tennessee
- A Novel Based on the Life and Times of David Crockett
- By: Cameron Judd
- Narrated by: Allan Robertson
- Length: 17 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From humble beginnings in rural Tennessee to his heroic death defending the Alamo, frontiersman, adventurer, and politician David Davy Crockett embodies the spirit and ideals of the national character. Even during his lifetime, tales of the sharpshooting, skilled woodsman were - to his delight - told, retold, and elaborated on. As a US congressman, the former Creek War militiaman steadfastly opposed President Andrew Jackson's Indian Removal Act.
-
-
I highly recommend
- By That Man They Call Shad on 05-05-21
By: Cameron Judd
-
Mudbound
- By: Hillary Jordan
- Narrated by: Ezra Knight, Kate Forbes, Joseph Collins, and others
- Length: 9 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Hillary Jordan's mesmerizing debut novel won the Bellwether Prize for fiction. A powerful piece of Southern literature, Mudbound takes on prejudice in its myriad forms on a Mississippi Delta farm in 1946. City girl Laura McAllen attempts to raise her family despite questionable decisions made by her husband. Tensions continue to rise when her brother-in-law and the son of a family of sharecroppers both return from WWII as changed men bearing the scars of combat.
-
-
May this South never rise again.
- By Betty on 03-25-12
By: Hillary Jordan
-
Epitaph
- A Novel of the O.K. Corral
- By: Mary Doria Russell
- Narrated by: Hillary Huber
- Length: 19 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A deeply divided nation. Vicious politics. A shamelessly partisan media. A president loathed by half the populace. Smuggling and gang warfare along the Mexican border. Armed citizens willing to stand their ground and take law into their own hands.... That was America in 1881. All those forces came to bear on the afternoon of October 26, when Doc Holliday and the Earp brothers faced off against the Clantons and the McLaurys in Tombstone, Arizona. It should have been a simple misdemeanor arrest.
-
-
SO GOOD!
- By Cait on 06-30-15
-
Left at the Altar
- By: Margaret Brownley
- Narrated by: Kate Forbes
- Length: 10 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the wild and untamed West, time is set by the local jeweler but Two-Time Texas has two: two feuding jewelers and two wildly conflicting time zones. Meg Lockwood's marriage was supposed to unite the families and finally bring peace. But when she's left at the altar by her no-good fiancé, Meg's dreams of dragging her quarrelsome neighbors into a ceasefire are dashed.
-
-
Great Book
- By Kmacy on 01-15-24
-
Sometimes a Great Notion
- By: Ken Kesey
- Narrated by: Tom Stechschulte
- Length: 30 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A literary icon sometimes seen as a bridge between the Beat Generation and the hippies, Ken Kesey scored an unexpected hit with his first novel, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. His successful follow-up, Sometimes a Great Notion, was also transformed into a major motion picture, directed by and starring Paul Newman. Here, Oregon’s Stamper family does what it can to survive a bitter strike dividing their tiny logging community. And as tensions rise, delicate family bonds begin to fray and unravel.
-
-
Sometimes a Great Novel Pops up out of Nowhere
- By Mr. Eyuz on 06-07-19
By: Ken Kesey
-
Rhett Butler's People
- By: Donald McCaig
- Narrated by: John Bedford Lloyd
- Length: 18 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The publication of Rhett Butler's People marks a major and historic cultural event. Through the storytelling mastery of award-winning writer Donald McCaig, the life and times of the dashing Rhett Butler unfolds. Through Rhett's eyes we meet the people who shaped his larger than life personality as it sprang from Margaret Mitchell: Langston Butler, Rhett's unyielding father; Rosemary his steadfast sister; Tunis Bonneau, Rhett's best friend and a onetime slave; Belle Watling, the woman for whom Rhett cared long before he met Scarlett O'Hara at Twelve Oaks Plantation, on the fateful eve of the Civil War.
-
-
Unconvincing
- By FMS on 04-10-19
By: Donald McCaig
-
To Kill a Mockingbird
- By: Harper Lee
- Narrated by: Sissy Spacek
- Length: 12 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Harper Lee’s Pulitzer prize-winning masterwork of honor and injustice in the deep south - and the heroism of one man in the face of blind and violent hatred, available now for the first time as a digital audiobook. One of the best-loved stories of all time, To Kill a Mockingbird has been translated into more than 40 languages, sold more than 30 million copies worldwide, served as the basis for an enormously popular motion picture, and was voted one of the best novels of the 20th century by librarians across the country.
-
-
A gift to be treasured
- By David Shear on 07-09-14
By: Harper Lee
-
Hot Springs
- Earl Swagger, Book 1
- By: Stephen Hunter
- Narrated by: Eric G. Dove
- Length: 16 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Earl Swagger is tough as hell. But even tough guys have their secrets. Plagued by the memory of his abusive father, apprehensive about his own impending parenthood, Earl is a decorated ex-Marine of absolute integrity — and overwhelming melancholy. Now he’s about to face his biggest, bloodiest challenge yet. It is the summer of 1946, organized crime’s garish golden age, when American justice seems to have gone to seed for good.
-
-
Good start to a series
- By Jonathan on 09-25-12
By: Stephen Hunter
-
Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All
- By: Allan Gurganus
- Narrated by: Barbara McCulloh
- Length: 49 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Allan Gurganus's Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All became an instant classic upon its publication. Critics and fans alike fell in love with the voice of 99-year-old Confederate widow Lucy Marsden, one of the most entertaining and loquacious heroines in American literature. Lucy married at the turn of the 20th century, when she was 15 and her husband was 50. If Colonel William Marsden was a veteran of the "War for Southern Independence", Lucy became a "veteran of the veteran" with a unique perspective on Southern history and Southern manhood.
-
-
Dated.
- By edie butler on 04-06-21
By: Allan Gurganus
-
Dessa Rose
- A Novel
- By: Sherley Anne Williams
- Narrated by: Ruby Dee
- Length: 2 hrs and 56 mins
- Abridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This is the story of an extraordinary friendship between two remarkable women, both caught in the shadow of slavery in the 19th-century South. One is an escaped black slave under sentence of death; the other is white, yet committed to end the horrors her neighbors accept as a matter of course. Ruby Dee's passionate and sensitive readings gives a poignant sense of reality to this magnificent novel of courage, daring and love.
-
-
One Star from Perfect
- By Marty on 01-26-18
-
The Bastard
- The Kent Family Chronicles, Book 1
- By: John Jakes
- Narrated by: Marc Vietor
- Length: 19 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Set against the colorful tumult of events that gave rise to our fledgling nation, this novel of romance and adventure introduces Phillipe Charboneau. The illegitimate son of an English nobleman, Phillipe flees Europe and, as Philip Kent, joins the men who set our course for freedom. The Bastard is the first volume in the Kent Family Chronicles, a series of novels that details one family's journey in the early years of the American nation.
-
-
An Amazing Tale
- By will on 11-06-13
By: John Jakes
-
Cataloochee
- By: Wayne Caldwell
- Narrated by: Scott Sowers
- Length: 12 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Debut novelist Wayne Caldwell's Cataloochee -a rich, vivid, arresting work beginning at the dawn of Reconstruction - sprawls across the succeeding generations like the vast green mountains of its rural North Carolina setting. Best-selling author Charles Frazier calls it "a brilliant portrait of a community and a way of life long gone, a lost America." This enthralling saga evokes the full color spectrum of mountain life, from lights to darks and every shade in between.
-
-
Love It!
- By Cynthia J. Hakansson on 02-27-09
By: Wayne Caldwell
-
The Resurrection of Nat Turner, Part 1: The Witness
- By: Sharon E. Foster
- Narrated by: John McLain
- Length: 13 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Leading a small army of slaves, Nat Turner was a man born with a mission: to set the captives free. When words failed, he ignited an uprising that left over 50 whites dead. In the predawn hours of August 22, 1831, Nat Turner stormed into history with a Bible in one hand, brandishing a sword in the other. His rebellion shined a spotlight on slavery and the state of Virginia and divided a nation's trust. Turner himself became a lightning rod for abolitionists like Harriet Beecher Stowe and a terror and secret shame for slave owners.
-
-
Purchase and Download NOW!
- By Giselle E Ambursley on 03-03-16
By: Sharon E. Foster
-
Hell at the Breech
- By: Tom Franklin
- Narrated by: Larry Pine
- Length: 13 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1897, an aspiring politician is mysteriously murdered in the rural area of Alabama known as Mitcham Beat. His outraged friends - mostly poor cotton farmers - form a secret society, Hell-at-the-Breech, to punish the townspeople they believe responsible. The hooded members wage a bloody year-long campaign of terror that culminates in a massacre where the innocent suffer alongside the guilty.
-
-
Pull up them breeches, son
- By W Perry Hall on 02-04-14
By: Tom Franklin
-
Andersonville
- By: MacKinlay Kantor
- Narrated by: Grover Gardner
- Length: 37 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Acclaimed as the greatest novel ever written about the War Between the States, this searing Pulitzer Prize-winning book captures all the glory and shame of America's most tragic conflict in the vivid, crowded world of Andersonville, and the people who lived outside its barricades. Based on the author's extensive research and nearly 25 years in the making, MacKinlay Kantor's best-selling masterwork tells the heartbreaking story of the notorious Georgia prison where 50,000 Northern soldiers suffered.
-
-
Worthy of the Pulitzer
- By Gillian on 03-22-15
By: MacKinlay Kantor
-
Gone with the Wind
- By: Margaret Mitchell
- Narrated by: Linda Stephens
- Length: 49 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Literature, Margaret Mitchell's great novel of the South is one of the most popular books ever written. Within six months of its publication in 1936, Gone With the Wind had sold a million copies. To date, it has been translated into 25 languages, and more than 28 million copies have been sold. Here are the characters that have become symbols of passion and desire....
-
-
not to miss audible experience
- By dallas on 12-08-09
-
North and South
- North and South Trilogy, Book 1
- By: John Jakes
- Narrated by: Grover Gardner
- Length: 30 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Two strangers, young men from Pennsylvania and South Carolina, meet on the way to West Point.... Thus begins this brilliant novel of antebellum America, spanning three generations and chronicling the lives and loves of two great family dynasties. The Hazards and the Mains are brought together in bonds of friendship and affection that neither jealousy nor violence can shatter - until a storm of events sunders the nation and brings the cataclysm of war!
-
-
Captivating novel of the Civil War
- By 9S on 01-12-13
By: John Jakes
-
High Country Bride
- By: Linda Lael Miller
- Narrated by: Jack Garrett
- Length: 13 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
One ranch. Three sons. Only one will inherit...and on one condition. Tired of waiting for his sons to settle down, Arizona-territory rancher Angus McKettrick announces a competition: the first son to marry and produce a grandchild will inherit Triple M ranch. Now, three distinctly different, equally determined cowboys are searching high and low for brides.
-
-
good book but not what was in the summary:
- By Zandra Zavalza on 01-30-16
People who viewed this also viewed...
-
In the Spirit of Crazy Horse
- By: Peter Matthiessen
- Narrated by: Mark Bramhall
- Length: 28 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
On a hot June morning in 1975, a fatal shoot-out took place between FBI agents and American Indians on a remote property near Wounded Knee, South Dakota, in which an Indian and two federal agents were killed. Eventually, four members of the American Indian Movement were indicted on murder charges in the deaths of the two agents. Behind this violent chain of events lie issues of great complexity and profound historical resonance, brilliantly explicated by Peter Matthiessen in this controversial book.
-
-
Must read for a true picture of america
- By N. Duvall on 07-21-16
-
The Snow Leopard
- By: Peter Matthiessen, Pico Iyer - introduction
- Narrated by: Peter Matthiessen
- Length: 7 hrs and 56 mins
- Abridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1973, Peter Matthiessen and field biologist George Schaller traveled high into the remote mountains of Nepal to study the Himalayan blue sheep and possibly glimpse the rare and beautiful snow leopard. Matthiessen, a student of Z en Buddhism, was also on a spiritual quest to find the Lama of Shey at the ancient shrine on Crystal Mountain. As the climb proceeds, Matthiessen charts his inner path as well as his outer one.
-
-
Worth the wait
- By Robert on 04-13-14
By: Peter Matthiessen, and others
-
In Paradise
- A Novel
- By: Peter Matthiessen
- Narrated by: Mark Bramhall
- Length: 6 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the winter of 1996, more than 100 women and men of diverse nationality, background, and belief gather at the site of a former concentration camp for an unprecedented purpose: a weeklong retreat during which they will offer prayer and witness at the crematoria and meditate in all weathers on the selection platform, while eating and sleeping in the quarters of the Nazi officers who, half a century before, sent more than a million Jews to their deaths.
-
-
I give this book five stars because it is truly an
- By fred on 04-15-14
-
At Play in the Fields of the Lord
- By: Peter Matthiessen
- Narrated by: Anthony Heald
- Length: 14 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In a malarial outpost in the South American rain forest, two misplaced gringos converge and clash. Martin Quarrier has come to convert the fearful and elusive Niaruna Indians to his brand of Christianity. Lewis Moon, a stateless mercenary who is himself part Indian, has come to kill them on the behalf of the local comandante.
-
-
I'm confused about the award-winning author part
- By Benjamin on 09-30-22
-
At Play in the Fields of the Lord
- By: Peter Matthiessen
- Narrated by: George Guidall
- Length: 16 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The timely story of how the forces of change converge on a small tribe of Niaruna Indians living in the heart of the Amazon rain forest. In addition to being a prophetic commentary on emerging threats to the environment, and the troublesome encroachment of the modern world on traditional cultures, the novel is a suspenseful adventure story about two men striving to find meaning in a world not their own.
-
-
We only see glimpses through the jungle canopy
- By Dan Harlow on 05-23-14
-
The Tree Where Man Was Born
- By: Peter Matthiessen
- Narrated by: Dion Graham
- Length: 9 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this classic volume, Peter Matthiessen exquisitely combines nature and travel writing to bring East Africa to vivid life. He skillfully and magically portrays the sights, scenes, and people he observed firsthand in several trips over the course of a dozen years: the daily lives of herdsmen and hunter-gatherers; the drama of the predator kills; the hundreds of exotic animals; the breathtaking landscapes; the area's turbulent natural, political, and social histories; and more.
-
-
Some Technical Issues
- By Amazon Customer on 03-22-12
-
In the Spirit of Crazy Horse
- By: Peter Matthiessen
- Narrated by: Mark Bramhall
- Length: 28 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
On a hot June morning in 1975, a fatal shoot-out took place between FBI agents and American Indians on a remote property near Wounded Knee, South Dakota, in which an Indian and two federal agents were killed. Eventually, four members of the American Indian Movement were indicted on murder charges in the deaths of the two agents. Behind this violent chain of events lie issues of great complexity and profound historical resonance, brilliantly explicated by Peter Matthiessen in this controversial book.
-
-
Must read for a true picture of america
- By N. Duvall on 07-21-16
-
The Snow Leopard
- By: Peter Matthiessen, Pico Iyer - introduction
- Narrated by: Peter Matthiessen
- Length: 7 hrs and 56 mins
- Abridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1973, Peter Matthiessen and field biologist George Schaller traveled high into the remote mountains of Nepal to study the Himalayan blue sheep and possibly glimpse the rare and beautiful snow leopard. Matthiessen, a student of Z en Buddhism, was also on a spiritual quest to find the Lama of Shey at the ancient shrine on Crystal Mountain. As the climb proceeds, Matthiessen charts his inner path as well as his outer one.
-
-
Worth the wait
- By Robert on 04-13-14
By: Peter Matthiessen, and others
-
In Paradise
- A Novel
- By: Peter Matthiessen
- Narrated by: Mark Bramhall
- Length: 6 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the winter of 1996, more than 100 women and men of diverse nationality, background, and belief gather at the site of a former concentration camp for an unprecedented purpose: a weeklong retreat during which they will offer prayer and witness at the crematoria and meditate in all weathers on the selection platform, while eating and sleeping in the quarters of the Nazi officers who, half a century before, sent more than a million Jews to their deaths.
-
-
I give this book five stars because it is truly an
- By fred on 04-15-14
-
At Play in the Fields of the Lord
- By: Peter Matthiessen
- Narrated by: Anthony Heald
- Length: 14 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In a malarial outpost in the South American rain forest, two misplaced gringos converge and clash. Martin Quarrier has come to convert the fearful and elusive Niaruna Indians to his brand of Christianity. Lewis Moon, a stateless mercenary who is himself part Indian, has come to kill them on the behalf of the local comandante.
-
-
I'm confused about the award-winning author part
- By Benjamin on 09-30-22
-
At Play in the Fields of the Lord
- By: Peter Matthiessen
- Narrated by: George Guidall
- Length: 16 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The timely story of how the forces of change converge on a small tribe of Niaruna Indians living in the heart of the Amazon rain forest. In addition to being a prophetic commentary on emerging threats to the environment, and the troublesome encroachment of the modern world on traditional cultures, the novel is a suspenseful adventure story about two men striving to find meaning in a world not their own.
-
-
We only see glimpses through the jungle canopy
- By Dan Harlow on 05-23-14
-
The Tree Where Man Was Born
- By: Peter Matthiessen
- Narrated by: Dion Graham
- Length: 9 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this classic volume, Peter Matthiessen exquisitely combines nature and travel writing to bring East Africa to vivid life. He skillfully and magically portrays the sights, scenes, and people he observed firsthand in several trips over the course of a dozen years: the daily lives of herdsmen and hunter-gatherers; the drama of the predator kills; the hundreds of exotic animals; the breathtaking landscapes; the area's turbulent natural, political, and social histories; and more.
-
-
Some Technical Issues
- By Amazon Customer on 03-22-12
-
The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford
- By: Ron Hansen
- Narrated by: Sam Freed
- Length: 6 hrs and 11 mins
- Abridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Jesse James was a fabled outlaw, a charismatic, spiritual, larger-than-life bad man whose bloody exploits captured the imagination and admiration of a nation hungry for antiheroes. Robert Ford was a young upstart torn between dedicated worship and murderous jealousy, the "dirty little coward" who coveted Jesse's legend.
-
-
Wonderful
- By alankelleher on 07-28-15
By: Ron Hansen
-
So Long, See You Tomorrow
- By: William Maxwell
- Narrated by: William Maxwell
- Length: 6 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
On an Illinois farm in the 1920s, a man is murdered, and in the same moment the tenous friendship between two lonely boys comes to an end. In telling their interconnected stories, American Book Award winner William delivers a masterfully restrained and magically evocative meditation on the past
-
-
A Jewel
- By Amazon Customer on 11-18-17
By: William Maxwell
-
Mudbound
- By: Hillary Jordan
- Narrated by: Ezra Knight, Kate Forbes, Joseph Collins, and others
- Length: 9 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Hillary Jordan's mesmerizing debut novel won the Bellwether Prize for fiction. A powerful piece of Southern literature, Mudbound takes on prejudice in its myriad forms on a Mississippi Delta farm in 1946. City girl Laura McAllen attempts to raise her family despite questionable decisions made by her husband. Tensions continue to rise when her brother-in-law and the son of a family of sharecroppers both return from WWII as changed men bearing the scars of combat.
-
-
May this South never rise again.
- By Betty on 03-25-12
By: Hillary Jordan
-
Tides
- The Science and Spirit of the Ocean
- By: Jonathan White, Peter Matthiessen - Foreward
- Narrated by: Dan Woren
- Length: 11 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In Tides: The Science and Spirit of the Ocean, writer, sailor, and surfer Jonathan White takes listeners across the globe to discover the science and spirit of ocean tides. In the Arctic, White shimmies under the ice with an Inuit elder to hunt for mussels in the dark cavities left behind at low tide; in China, he races the Silver Dragon, a 25-foot tidal bore that crashes 80 miles up the Qiantang River; in France, he interviews the monks that live in the tide-wrapped monastery of Mont Saint-Michel; in Chile and Scotland, he investigates the growth of tidal power generation.
-
-
1/3 Science and Spirit- 2/3 meaningless details
- By Buddy on 06-06-18
By: Jonathan White, and others
-
The Echo Maker
- By: Richard Powers
- Narrated by: Bernadette Dunne
- Length: 20 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
On a winter night on a remote Nebraska road, 27-year-old Mark Schluter flips his truck in a near fatal accident. His older sister, Karin, returns to nurse Mark back from a traumatic head injury. But when he emerges from a coma, Mark believes that this woman is really an impostor who looks just like his sister. Shattered, Karin contacts the cognitive neurologist Gerald Weber, who eagerly investigates. What he discovers in Mark slowly undermines even his own sense of being.
-
-
Too much time for a boring story
- By HannahMK on 08-06-20
By: Richard Powers
-
Tree of Smoke
- A Novel
- By: Denis Johnson
- Narrated by: Will Patton
- Length: 23 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This is the story of Skip Sands—spy-in-training, engaged in Psychological Operations against the Vietcong—and the disasters that befall him thanks to his famous uncle, a war hero known in intelligence circles simply as the Colonel. This is also the story of the Houston brothers, Bill and James, young men who drift out of the Arizona desert into a war in which the line between disinformation and delusion has blurred away. In its vision of human folly, and its gritty, sympathetic portraits of men and women desperate for an end to their loneliness.
-
-
tree of smoke
- By ed spilka on 12-13-07
By: Denis Johnson
-
A Land Remembered
- By: Patrick D. Smith
- Narrated by: George Guidall
- Length: 14 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this best-selling novel, Patrick D. Smith tells the story of three generations of the MacIveys, a Florida family who battle the hardships of the frontier to rise from a dirt-poor Cracker life to the wealth and standing of real estate tycoons. The story opens in 1858, when Tobias MacIvey arrives in the Florida wilderness to start a new life, and ends in 1968 with Solomon MacIvey, who realizes that the land has been exploited far beyond human need.
-
-
Excellent historical tale
- By Boysmom on 04-10-15
By: Patrick D. Smith
-
The Postman Always Rings Twice
- By: James M. Cain
- Narrated by: Stanley Tucci
- Length: 2 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
An amoral young tramp. A beautiful, sullen woman with an inconvenient husband. A problem that has only one, grisly solution; a solution that only creates other problems that no one can ever solve.
-
-
Tucci's performance of "Postman" is exquisite!
- By Christopher on 06-25-12
By: James M. Cain
-
The Friend
- A Novel
- By: Sigrid Nunez
- Narrated by: Hillary Huber
- Length: 5 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When a woman unexpectedly loses her lifelong best friend and mentor, she finds herself burdened with the unwanted dog he has left behind. Her own battle against grief is intensified by the mute suffering of the dog, a huge Great Dane traumatized by the inexplicable disappearance of its master, and by the threat of eviction: Dogs are prohibited in her apartment building. While others worry that grief has made her a victim of magical thinking, the woman refuses to be separated from the dog except for brief periods of time.
-
-
Dreadful and misleading...
- By Gail on 11-18-18
By: Sigrid Nunez
-
Crossroads
- A Novel
- By: Jonathan Franzen
- Narrated by: David Pittu
- Length: 24 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Jonathan Franzen’s gift for wedding depth and vividness of character with breadth of social vision has never been more dazzlingly evident than in Crossroads. A tour de force of interwoven perspectives and sustained suspense, its action largely unfolding on a single winter day, Crossroads is the story of a Midwestern family at a pivotal moment of moral crisis. Jonathan Franzen’s gift for melding the small picture and the big picture has never been more dazzlingly evident.
-
-
How do narrators still do clownish stuff like this in 2021?
- By Hotrodimus on 10-30-21
By: Jonathan Franzen
-
The Shipping News
- By: Annie Proulx
- Narrated by: Paul Hecht
- Length: 12 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
At 36, Quoyle, a third-rate newspaperman, is wrenched violently out of his workaday life when his two-timing wife gets her just desserts. He retreats with his two daughters to his ancestral home on the starkly beautiful Newfoundland coast, where a rich cast of local characters all play a part in Quoyle's struggle to reclaim his life. As three generations of his family cobble up new lives, Quoyle confronts his private demons - and the unpredictable forces of nature and society - and begins to see the possibility of love without pain or misery.
-
-
Can't Explain Why I Love This Book
- By Polly on 03-06-12
By: Annie Proulx
-
The Diamond Age
- By: Neal Stephenson
- Narrated by: Jennifer Wiltsie
- Length: 18 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Neal Stephenson, "the hottest science fiction writer in America", takes science fiction to dazzling new levels. The Diamond Age is a stunning tale; set in 21st-century Shanghai, it is the story of what happens what a state-of-the-art interactive device falls into the hands of a street urchin named Nell. Her life, and the entire future of humanity, is about to be decoded and reprogrammed.
-
-
The rock could use a bit more polishing
- By Tango on 05-19-13
By: Neal Stephenson
What listeners say about Shadow Country
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
- W.Denis
- 03-04-09
Why so much?
I would have enjoyed this tome much more if the last section in which EJ Watson talks about himself came first. For me this would have made views about him in the first two sections more readily understandable and would have helped me keep track of the myriad of realtives, friends, and enemies. Without a book in front of you, be prepared to write down names.
I guess the whole thing was worth it. The narrator was exellent and the saving of the Everglades is worth understanding as is a last frontier history burried under the Wild West. A lot of Nigger-talk for those sensitive to it, but the story could not be told without it.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
6 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- AV
- 08-09-12
A Novel Meant to Be Listened To
If you could sum up Shadow Country in three words, what would they be?
Compelling country storytelling.
What other book might you compare Shadow Country to and why?
Absolam, Absolam, by William Faulkner, as a tale of the deep south after the civil war.
Have you listened to any of Anthony Heald’s other performances before? How does this one compare?
No, but I think I should.
Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?
In three volumes, read in five parts, there are too many.
Any additional comments?
This if the first audio book I believe I would NOT prefer reading over listening. Heald is extraordinary in his ability to bring to life deep southern speech patterns, male and female, and the author's amazing choices of words and story-telling ability. Every bit makes me feel as though I'm sitting on a rural home's porch, listening to a colorful story teller.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
2 people found this helpful
-
Overall
- James Gerber
- 02-22-11
A Great Yarn
I whole-heartedly agree with the positive reviews of this book. It is a wonderful story of strong characters during a wild time in south Florida history. One of the reviews said that part three could stand on its own as a novel. That is true, but it is so much richer if you have the background from parts one and two. The language is pretty rough, but is entirely in character.
One note about the narration, though: if you primarily listen in the car, be prepared to adjust the volume frequently. The narrator tends to let his voice drop to a whisper, then comes back full-force in the next phrase, so you end up increasing the volume to hear the soft parts, then turning it down again to protect your hearing. The recording engineer should have used more audio compression to keep the dynamic range to a comfortable level.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- THRIFTY LAWYER
- 12-17-14
couldn't wait for it to end
this is basically a compilation of 3 books in one edition. the first is told interview-style from the perspective of numerous residents of the ten thousand islands detailing the events leading up to the death of Edgar Watson, the second picks up where the first left off and is told from the perspective of Edgar Watson's son, and the third is a first-person account by Edgar Watson filling us in on what really happened. first, while the story is fundamentally good, hearing parts of it three times over really dragged. second, the many characters interviewed in the first section are all very similar in dialect, tone, etc, and it's impossible in an audio book to keep track of everyone and figure out why they're important. the narrator is good and with his voice and accent paints a clear picture of west Florida, but there seems to be a problem with the volume in which the book was recorded, and I had to turn the volume on my player up to the maximum to hear. the prose is nice and the book is well-written. all in all I might recommend this as a regular book but not as an audio book.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
- John
- 05-02-09
Engrossing, Rich and Powerful
Shadow Country is a superb book. From what I understand, it is a compilation of a trilogy surrounding the life and death of Edgar J Watson, a real-life legendary character of the American south around the late 1800's to his death in 1910. As in a trilogy, this book is comprised of three distinct parts, beginning at the end with Watson's death at the hands of a vigilante mob. The rest of the book is back story; with the first part describing Watson as told by the various people who knew him (many of these people participated in his murder/execution). The second part is told after the fact by Watson's beloved younger son, Lucius, who devotes his life in vain to uncovering the real truth about the life and death of his father. Was he the loving father Lucius knew or the reputed murderous monster?
Parts one and two, painting a vivid picture of the man and history of the region, raise as many questions as it provides answers until finally, part three, where autobiographically told by Edgar Watson himself everything is revealed. Part three, could easily stand alone as a complete novel.
This book is wonderfully written and masterfully read. It has everything; rich descriptions of the landscapes, people, and history, and plausible dialog complete with the dialects of the antebellum and postwar south. It pulls no punches when it comes to slavery and racism, so if you are not willing to hear the "N" word contextually used, be duly warned.
Peter Matthiessen brings the places and time to life. His description of the landscape after a hurricane is perfect. Perhaps living in South Florida made the story more real for me. For example, I have been to Arcadia many times. To this day it is not hard to imagine it as the old-west saloon-filled cattle town of a century past. Certainly there is a lot of history of the Everglades and man's attempts to rape this last frontier.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
46 people found this helpful
-
Overall
- Walter
- 03-18-09
Real Florida
Dropped me into old Florida like Marjorie Stoneman Douglas (River of Grass). As a Florida historian I was gripped by the eyes of frontier protagonists as they weaved their lives and the prejudice terror that emitted from each page. The author really did his homework. Put on your seatbelt on this one. You are in for a ride.
South Florida, March 2009
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
10 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Marie
- 12-21-11
Matthiessen's Best yet
If you could sum up Shadow Country in three words, what would they be?
No other aurhor has ever captured the flavor of the area and the people of Florida's forgotten southwest corner s Peter Matteissen has done in his latest novel. Killing Mr. Watson was a tour de force and this novel goes well beyond that. The area alive in every line and the story builds and builds to its stunning conclusion.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Ellen
- 04-22-14
Truly Outstanding Story and Narration
This is an epic achievement done complete justice by the superb narration by Anthony Heald. Frankly, he is the best narrator I have ever heard and will purchase more of his titles. The story itself is transcendent: so heartbreakingly sad yet such a complete picture of a man, a time and the devastating effect one man can have on so many others, including himself.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Ceedeedee
- 12-28-11
Was he, or wasn't he?
Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?
This writer easily challenges Elmore Leonard for king of dialogue; this long selection flies by. Totally believable characters in hardship and life lessons few of us knows. American history that no one else is going to tell you in a way that you FEEL it. The reader is very much a part of why you want the Audible experience rather than written word. He is old enough and has paid enough attention to Americans of all stripes that he brings you right in to Shadow Country. Enough of my 72 years have been spent around people who are a few steps farther along that I can recognize them and me, even though we are educated and wealthy in comparison,I love this and will listen again to favorite events in the lives of the folks I have become familiar with.
What other book might you compare Shadow Country to and why?
I know no other experience like Shadow Country.
Have you listened to any of Anthony Heald’s other performances before? How does this one compare?
No, but I will.
If you could take any character from Shadow Country out to dinner, who would it be and why?
Any of the women, to give them hope of change comin'.
Any additional comments?
no
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Sara
- 10-14-15
You Can Feel Florida On Each Page
This powerful book evokes Florida in a way very few other books have done for me. Up until now my favorite writer to have really captured the sense of place of Florida was Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings. Matthiessen's writing picks apart and examines the story from multiple angles with no stone left unturned. There is so much detail, so much feeling reduced exactingly to words that at times it boggled the mind. I felt transported to the swampy waterways and could feel the heat.
I listened piecemeal--dividing the book up into sections and listening to each separately. After a section I would pause and go off and read several other books--taking a break. Even listening this way I was drawn back and kept returning to hear more. It took me a good long while to finish the book. I might have preferred that the volume was left in its three parts as first published. I know Matthiessen wanted it published as a whole in one book--but it was very long.
I agree with another reviewer that listening is better than reading with this book. Heald's narration captures the essence and feeling of the time in which the story took place. It was beautifully read. Worth the time.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
35 people found this helpful