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The Ice Cream Queen of Orchard Street
- A Novel
- Narrated by: Susan Jane Gilman
- Length: 16 hrs and 30 mins
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Publisher's summary
A clever and complex woman builds an ice cream empire after immigrating from Russia in this stunning novel of power, Prohibition, and performance set against the backdrop of early 20th century America
In 1913, little Malka Treynovsky flees Russia with her family. Bedazzled by tales of gold and movie stardom, she tricks them into buying tickets for America. Yet no sooner do they land on the squalid Lower East Side of Manhattan, than Malka is crippled and abandoned in the street.
Taken in by a tough-loving Italian ices peddler, she manages to survive through cunning and inventiveness. As she learns the secrets of his trade, she begins to shape her own destiny. She falls in love with a gorgeous, illiterate radical named Albert, and they set off across America in an ice cream truck. Slowly, she transforms herself into Lillian Dunkle, "The Ice Cream Queen" - doyenne of an empire of ice cream franchises and a celebrated television personality.
Lillian's rise to fame and fortune spans 70 years and is inextricably linked to the course of American history itself, from Prohibition to the disco days of Studio 54. Yet Lillian Dunkle is nothing like the whimsical motherly persona she crafts for herself in the media. Conniving, profane, and irreverent, she is a supremely complex woman who prefers a good stiff drink to an ice cream cone. And when her past begins to catch up with her, everything she has spent her life building is at stake.
Critic reviews
"[A] standout travel memoir...Gilman's descriptions of their trials and tribulations crackle with wit." (Booklist)
"This shrewd and lively novel tells us about those chasms between public success and private truths that make up so much of American life. The energetic narrator, the ice cream queen, is a confidence-woman, and her darkly comic story about life in the big city and in the media spotlight will give readers chills." (Charles Baxter, author of The Soul Thief)
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Not Her Best
- By Phyllis on 10-05-19
By: Alice Hoffman
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A Fall of Marigolds
- By: Susan Meissner
- Narrated by: Tavia Gilbert
- Length: 9 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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September 1911. On Ellis Island in New York Harbor, nurse Clara Wood cannot face returning to Manhattan, where the man she loved fell to his death in the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire. Then, while caring for a fevered immigrant whose own loss mirrors hers, she becomes intrigued by a name embroidered onto the scarf he carries...and finds herself caught in a dilemma that compels her to confront the truth about the assumptions she's made. Will what she learns devastate her or free her?
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Beautiful!
- By R. Burnham on 03-29-15
By: Susan Meissner
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Up from Orchard Street
- By: Eleanor Widmer
- Narrated by: Lorna Raver
- Length: 15 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
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Three generations of Roths live together in a crowded tenement flat. Long-widowed Manya is the family's head and its heart. But Manya is no soft touch, except, perhaps, where her granddaughter Elka is concerned. Precocious Elka is her closest companion and confidante. Through Elka's eyes we come to know the fascinating characters who move in and out of the Roths' lives.
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Tenement Life From a Child's Point of View
- By Sara on 08-10-14
By: Eleanor Widmer
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When Crickets Cry
- By: Charles Martin
- Narrated by: Adam Verner
- Length: 11 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
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It begins on the shaded town square in a sleepy Southern town. A spirited seven-year-old has a brisk business at her lemonade stand. But the little girl’s pretty yellow dress can’t quite hide the ugly scar on her chest. Her latest customer, a bearded stranger, drains his cup and heads to his car, his mind on a boat he's restoring at a nearby lake. The stranger understands more about the scar than he wants to admit. And the beat-up bread truck careening around the corner with its radio blaring is about to change the trajectory of both their lives.
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Soooo boring...and preachy.
- By Melanie on 03-05-20
By: Charles Martin
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The Flight Girls
- By: Noelle Salazar
- Narrated by: Xe Sands
- Length: 10 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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1941. Audrey Coltrane has always wanted to fly. It's why she implored her father to teach her at the little airfield back home in Texas. It’s why she signed up to train military pilots in Hawaii when the war in Europe began. And it’s why she insists she is not interested in any dream-derailing romantic involvements, even with the disarming Lieutenant James Hart, who fast becomes a friend as treasured as the women with whom she flies. Then one fateful day, she gets caught in the air over Pearl Harbor just as the bombs begin to fall, and suddenly, nowhere feels safe.
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Left wanting more...
- By Lora B on 08-06-19
By: Noelle Salazar
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Shantaram
- A Novel
- By: Gregory David Roberts
- Narrated by: Humphrey Bower
- Length: 42 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
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An escaped convict with a false passport, Lin flees maximum security prison in Australia for the teeming streets of Bombay, where he can disappear. Accompanied by his guide and faithful friend, Prabaker, the two enter the city’s hidden society of beggars and gangsters, prostitutes and holy men, soldiers and actors, and Indians and exiles from other countries, who seek in this remarkable place what they cannot find elsewhere.
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Probably the best performance I've listened to.
- By Mickey on 04-15-14
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Coal River
- By: Ellen Marie Wiseman
- Narrated by: C. S. E. Cooney
- Length: 11 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
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As a child, Emma Malloy left isolated Coal River, Pennsylvania, vowing never to return. Now, orphaned and penniless at 19, she accepts a train ticket from her aunt and uncle and travels back to the rough-hewn community. Treated like a servant by her relatives, Emma works for free in the company store. There, miners and their impoverished families must pay inflated prices for food, clothing, and tools while those who owe money are turned away to starve.
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Best book I've listened to all year.
- By Nathan Vidrine on 03-25-16
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Shelterwood
- A Novel
- By: Lisa Wingate
- Narrated by: Christine Lakin, Dan Bittner, Jenna Lamia
- Length: 14 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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Oklahoma, 1909. Eleven-year-old Olive Augusta Radley knows that her stepfather doesn’t have good intentions toward the two Choctaw girls boarded in their home as wards. When the older girl disappears, Ollie flees to the woods, taking six-year-old Nessa with her. Together they begin a perilous journey to the remote Winding Stair Mountains, the notorious territory of outlaws, treasure hunters, and desperate men. Along the way, Ollie and Nessa form an unlikely band with others like themselves, struggling to stay one step ahead of those who seek to exploit them . . . or worse.
By: Lisa Wingate
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Speak
- 20th Anniversary Edition
- By: Laurie Halse Anderson
- Narrated by: Mandy Siegfried, Ashley C. Ford, Jason Reynolds, and others
- Length: 5 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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From her first moment at Merryweather High, Melinda Sordino knows she's an outcast. She busted an end-of-summer party by calling the cops, a major infraction in high-school society, so her old friends won't talk to her, and people she doesn't know glare at her. She retreats into her head, where the lies and hypocrisies of high school stand in stark relief to her own silence, making her all the more mute.
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Recommend with Slight Reservations
- By FanB14 on 05-21-12
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The Spectacular
- A Novel
- By: Fiona Davis
- Narrated by: Rachel L. Jacobs, Kimberly Farr
- Length: 12 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
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New York City, 1956: Nineteen-year-old Marion Brooks knows she should be happy. Her high school sweetheart is about to propose and sweep her off to the life everyone has always expected they’d have together: a quiet house in the suburbs, Marion staying home to raise their future children. But instead, Marion finds herself feeling trapped. So when she comes across an opportunity to audition for the famous Radio City Rockettes—the glamorous precision-dancing troupe—she jumps at the chance to exchange her predictable future for the dazzling life of a performer.
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Entertaining
- By Maryellen H on 06-15-23
By: Fiona Davis
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The Nature of Fragile Things
- By: Susan Meissner
- Narrated by: Alana Kerr Collins, Jason Culp
- Length: 10 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
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Sophie Whalen is a young Irish immigrant so desperate to get out of a New York tenement that she answers a mail-order bride ad and agrees to marry a man she knows nothing about. San Francisco widower Martin Hocking proves to be as aloof as he is mesmerizingly handsome. Sophie quickly develops deep affection for Kat, Martin's silent five-year-old daughter, but Martin's odd behavior leaves her with the uneasy feeling that something about her newfound situation isn't right.
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The Nature of Fragile Things is a 5 star listen!
- By Kathy… send to help my husband to sleep!! on 02-04-21
By: Susan Meissner
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New York
- The Novel
- By: Edward Rutherfurd
- Narrated by: Mark Bramhall
- Length: 37 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
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New York is the book that millions of Rutherfurd's American fans have been waiting for. A brilliant mix of romance, war, family drama, and personal triumphs, it gloriously captures the search for freedom and prosperity at the heart of our nation's history.
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INCREDIBLE!
- By The Louligan on 11-18-09
What listeners say about The Ice Cream Queen of Orchard Street
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Linda
- 12-02-14
Fabulous Story, Questionable Narrator
What do you think the narrator could have done better?
Hired someone else to do the narration. Not all authors should narrate their own books. It took a lot for me to get past her voice. There was little difference between the characters' voices and it was clear she was not a skilled narrator. The story, however, was fabulous.
Any additional comments?
This story was excellent. It was not the story I was expecting from the cover. The cover suggests a more "girlish" story line, but I was pleasantly surprised by the depth of the characters and the story itself. I would most definitely recommend the book. I eventually got used to the narrator, but I have to admit I almost returned the book after the first few chapters and would have had I not become so interested in the story.
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14 people found this helpful
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- F. Newsom
- 09-01-18
Interesting
This story is very interesting historically, but was difficult for me because of the negative tone throughout.
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- Lee
- 07-09-23
It dragged on too long.
I felt this book didn’t have a dynamic component to it, and the story line just dragged for me.
I think the premise of the book is good, for me it lacked in delivery.
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- AmazonCustomer
- 06-27-14
licked it up
It's difficult to write a short review on a smart phone screen. But if i convince just one more person to read this story, the effort will be worth it.
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4 people found this helpful
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- D.K.
- 05-06-18
really enjoyed this book
The reader (actually in this case, the author) did a great job.
Loved the story and didn't want it to end.
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- Randi Goldstein
- 10-28-17
very fun
loved the Yiddish expressions that I haven't heard for years. a hamisha book. worth reading.
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- shirldog
- 04-22-18
Entertain ing as well as informative.
Loved this as an audio especially, very well researched to give a flavor for the times.
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- Sheila Silver Halet
- 09-08-18
wonderful story A pleasure to listen
just loved story kept me looking forward to find out what will be the end
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- SandyC
- 04-19-18
Ice cream queen is not sweet
This book was okay. There were some good historical references and you learn d a little bit about immigration and people’s struggles. But overall the main character is not sympathetic despite what she went through. And you really do not care what happens to her. There are a lot of irritating or inconsistencies to the story so it isn’t satisfying much either. I was glad to be done with it. So sue me, darlings! Lol
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- Steve
- 12-13-19
Enjoyable
From the early years in poverty to later years in wealth, she retained a sense of humor. Very enjoyable book.
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1 person found this helpful