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The Marriage Plot
- Narrated by: David Pittu
- Length: 15 hrs and 30 mins
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Publisher's summary
A New York Times Notable Book of 2011
A Publisher's Weekly Top 10 Book of 2011
A Kirkus Reviews Top 25 Best Fiction of 2011 Title
One of Library Journal's Best Books of 2011
A Salon Best Fiction of 2011 title
One of The Telegraph's Best Fiction Books of the Year 2011
It's the early 1980s—the country is in a deep recession, and life after college is harder than ever. In the cafés on College Hill, the wised-up kids are inhaling Derrida and listening to Talking Heads. But Madeleine Hanna, dutiful English major, is writing her senior thesis on Jane Austen and George Eliot, purveyors of the marriage plot that lies at the heart of the greatest English novels.
As Madeleine tries to understand why "it became laughable to read writers like Cheever and Updike, who wrote about the suburbia Madeleine and most of her friends had grown up in, in favor of reading the Marquis de Sade, who wrote about deflowering virgins in eighteenth-century France," real life, in the form of two very different guys, intervenes. Leonard Bankhead—charismatic loner, college Darwinist, and lost Portland boy—suddenly turns up in a semiotics seminar, and soon Madeleine finds herself in a highly charged erotic and intellectual relationship with him. At the same time, her old "friend" Mitchell Grammaticus—who's been reading Christian mysticism and generally acting strange—resurfaces, obsessed with the idea that Madeleine is destined to be his mate.
Over the next year, as the members of the triangle in this amazing, spellbinding novel graduate from college and enter the real world, events force them to reevaluate everything they learned in school. Leonard and Madeleine move to a biology Laboratory on Cape Cod, but can't escape the secret responsible for Leonard's seemingly inexhaustible energy and plunging moods. And Mitchell, traveling around the world to get Madeleine out of his mind, finds himself face-to-face with ultimate questions about the meaning of life, the existence of God, and the true nature of love.
Are the great love stories of the nineteenth century dead? Or can there be a new story, written for today and alive to the realities of feminism, sexual freedom, prenups, and divorce? With devastating wit and an abiding understanding of and affection for his characters, Jeffrey Eugenides revives the motivating energies of the Novel, while creating a story so contemporary and fresh that it unfolds like the intimate journal of our own lives.
Critic reviews
“The sound of silk drawn across fine-grain sandpaper best describes David Pittu's voice in THE MARRIAGE PLOT, by Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Jeffrey Eugenides...The talented Pittu rises to the occasion of this challenging work, rewarding the listener with a sense of satisfaction reserved for great works of literature.”—AudioFile magazine, An Earphones Award Winner
“David Pittu brilliantly narrates this audio version of Eugenides' complex novel, whether he's rattling off quotes from Jacques Derrida and Roland Barthes or creating unique voices for the book's many characters. Among the standouts are his renditions of the slow and reflective Mitchell and Thurston, the star of the semiotics seminar who speaks in a falsely laconic and disinterested fashion to impress his classmates and professor… [Pittu] never runs out of voices for this large, global cast. The result is one of the best audiobooks of the year.”—Publishers Weekly, starred review
“No one's more adept at channeling teenage angst than Jeffrey Eugenides. Not even J. D. Salinger . . . It's in mapping Mitchell's search for some sort of belief that might fill the spiritual hole in his heart and Madeleine's search for a way to turn her passion for literature into a vocation that this novel is at its most affecting, reminding us with uncommon understanding what it is to be young and idealistic, in pursuit of true love and in love with books and ideas.”—Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times
“This is a story about being young and bright and lost, a story Americans have been telling since Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises. Our exceptionally well-read but largely untested graduates still wonder: How should I live my life? What can I really believe in? Whom should I love? Literature has provided a wide range of answers to those questions—Lose Lady Brett! Give up on Daisy! Go with Team Edward!—but in the end, novels aren't really very good guidebooks. Instead, they're a chance to exercise our moral imagination, and this one provides an exceptionally witty and poignant workout.”—Ron Charles, The Washington Post
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- A Novel
- By: J. Courtney Sullivan
- Narrated by: Susan Denaker
- Length: 15 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Nora and Theresa Flynn are 21 and 17 when they leave their small village in Ireland and journey to America. Nora is the responsible sister; she's shy and serious and engaged to a man she isn't sure that she loves. Theresa is gregarious; she is thrilled by their new life in Boston and besotted with the fashionable dresses and dance halls on Dudley Street. But when Theresa ends up pregnant, Nora is forced to come up with a plan - a decision with repercussions they are both far too young to understand.
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The narration ruined it
- By Janis Reynolds on 06-12-17
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Fairyland
- A Memoir of My Father
- By: Alysia Abbott
- Narrated by: Alysia Abbott
- Length: 10 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
A beautiful, vibrant memoir about growing up motherless in 1970s and 80s San Francisco with an openly gay father. After his wife dies in a car accident, bisexual writer and activist Steve Abbott moves with his two-year-old daughter to San Francisco. There they discover a city in the midst of revolution, bustling with gay men in search of liberation - few of whom are raising a child. Steve throws himself into San Francisco's vibrant cultural scene.
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Great representation of the time
- By AvidReader22 on 06-07-19
By: Alysia Abbott
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The UnAmericans
- Stories
- By: Molly Antopol
- Narrated by: Jennifer Van Dyck
- Length: 7 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Again and again, Molly Antopol’s deeply sympathetic characters struggle for footing in an uncertain world, hounded by forces beyond their control. Their voices are intimate and powerful and they resonate with searing beauty. Antopol is a superb young talent, and The UnAmericans will long be remembered for its wit, humanity, and heart.
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Sensational stories! Brilliant new author.
- By MidwestGeek on 05-04-14
By: Molly Antopol
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All You Could Ask For
- A Novel
- By: Mike Greenberg
- Narrated by: Tavia Gilbert
- Length: 9 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Happily married Brooke discovers her loving husband has led a separate life with…another wife. Newlywed Samantha learns of her husband's cheating heart when she finds the goods on his computer. High-powered career woman Katherine works with heartbreaker Phillip, the man who hurt her early on in her career. Brooke, Samantha, and Katherine don't know one another, but their stories are about to intertwine in ways no one could have imagined. And all three are about to discover the power of friendship to conquer adversity.
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Annoyed by Hidden Theme
- By parsnip on 08-12-13
By: Mike Greenberg
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The Wife
- A Novel
- By: Meg Wolitzer
- Narrated by: Dawn Harvey
- Length: 8 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
The moment Joan Castleman decides to leave her husband, they are 35,000 feet above the ocean on a flight to Helsinki. Joan's husband, Joseph, is one of America's preeminent novelists, about to receive a prestigious international award, and Joan, who has spent 40 years subjugating her own literary talents to fan the flames of his career, has finally decided to stop.
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A bit of a downer
- By Jody Cox on 08-01-18
By: Meg Wolitzer
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Strong Motion
- By: Jonathan Franzen
- Narrated by: Scott Aiello
- Length: 20 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Louis Holland arrives in Boston in a spring of ecological upheaval (a rash of earthquakes on the North Shore) and odd luck: the first one kills his grandmother. Louis tries to maintain his independence, but falls in love with a Harvard seismologist whose discoveries about the earthquakes' cause complicate everything.
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Compelling Story, Ridiculous Narrator
- By DianeReads on 02-28-16
By: Jonathan Franzen
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Insomniac City
- New York, Oliver, and Me
- By: Bill Hayes
- Narrated by: Stephen Bel Davies
- Length: 6 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Bill Hayes came to New York City in 2009 with a one-way ticket and only the vaguest idea of how he would get by. But, at 48 years old, having spent decades in San Francisco, he craved change. Grieving over the death of his partner, he quickly discovered the profound consolations of the city's incessant rhythms, the sight of the Empire State Building against the night sky, and New Yorkers themselves, kindred souls that Hayes, a lifelong insomniac, encountered on late-night strolls with his camera.
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Touching and Intimate Portrait
- By Amazon Customer on 01-18-19
By: Bill Hayes
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If I Forget You
- A Novel
- By: Thomas Christopher Greene
- Narrated by: Kevin Pariseau
- Length: 6 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Twenty-one years after they were driven apart by circumstances beyond their control, two former lovers have a chance encounter on a Manhattan street. What follows is a tense, suspenseful exploration of the many facets of enduring love. Told from alternating points of view through time, If I Forget You tells the story of Henry Gold, a poet whose rise from poverty embodies the American dream, and Margot Fuller, the daughter of a prominent, wealthy family, and their unlikely, star-crossed love affair.
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Good, but not great.
- By Amazon Customer on 07-01-16
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The Night Ocean
- By: Paul La Farge
- Narrated by: Elisabeth Rodgers
- Length: 13 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Marina Willett, MD, has a problem. Her husband, Charlie, has become obsessed with H. P. Lovecraft, in particular with one episode in the legendary horror writer's life: In the summer of 1934, the "old gent" lived for two months with a gay teenage fan named Robert Barlow, at Barlow's family home in central Florida. What were the two of them up to? Were they friends - or something more? Just when Charlie thinks he's solved the puzzle, a new scandal erupts, and he disappears.
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Frustratingly Uneven Due to Clumsy Plot Structure
- By Adam on 06-15-17
By: Paul La Farge
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Children Playing Before a Statue of Hercules (Unabridged Selections)
- By: Edited by David Sedaris
- Narrated by: David Sedaris, Mary-Louise Parker, Cherry Jones
- Length: 2 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Children Playing Before a Statue of Hercules is a collection of short stories, some classic, others impending, selected and introduced by David Sedaris.
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Great stories but only 5 of 17 are included
- By Terri Kirk on 07-13-12
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The Finishing School
- A Novel
- By: Joanna Goodman
- Narrated by: Andi Arndt
- Length: 8 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
One spring night in 1998, the beautiful Cressida Strauss plunges from a fourth-floor balcony at the Lycée Internationale Suisse with catastrophic consequences. Loath to draw negative publicity to the school, a bastion of European wealth and glamour, officials quickly dismiss the incident as an accident, but questions remain. Was it a suicide attempt? Or was Cressida pushed? It was no secret that she had a selfish streak and had earned as many enemies as allies in her tenure at the school.
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this book was just ok
- By Josh Fields on 02-26-20
By: Joanna Goodman
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I'm Supposed to Protect You from All This
- A Memoir
- By: Nadja Spiegelman
- Narrated by: Nadja Spiegelman
- Length: 11 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
For a long time, Nadja Spiegelman believed her mother was a fairy. More than her famous father, Maus creator Art Spiegelman, and even more than most mothers, hers - French-born New Yorker art director Françoise Mouly - exerted a force over reality that was both dazzling and daunting. As Nadja's body changed and "began to whisper to the adults around me in a language I did not understand", their relationship grew tense.
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Aweful
- By Haley Abreu Kling on 07-05-17
By: Nadja Spiegelman
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Full Circle
- By: Michael Thomas Ford
- Narrated by: Blake Somerset
- Length: 17 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
History professor Ned Brummel is living happily with his partner of 12 years in small-town Maine when he receives a phone call from his estranged friend - Jack - telling him that another friend - Andy - is very ill and possibly near death. As Ned boards a plane to Chicago on his way to his friend's bedside, he embarks on another journey into memory, examining the major events and small moments that have shaped his world and his relationships with these two very different, very important men.
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To Every Season...
- By Donald on 10-01-13
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The Ramblers
- A Novel
- By: Aidan Donnelley Rowley
- Narrated by: Erica Sullivan
- Length: 11 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Set in the most magical parts of Manhattan - the Upper West Side, Central Park, Greenwich Village - The Ramblers explores the lives of three lost souls bound together by friendship and family. During the course of one fateful Thanksgiving week, a time when emotions run high and being with family can be a mixed blessing, Rowley's sharply defined characters explore the moments when decisions are deliberately made, choices accepted, and pasts reconciled.
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Lovely Portrait of The City
- By Dingo27 on 02-19-16
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After the Parade
- By: Lori Ostlund
- Narrated by: Sean Runnette
- Length: 12 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Sensitive, big-hearted, and achingly self-conscious, 40-year-old Aaron Englund long ago escaped the confines of his Midwestern hometown, but he still feels like an outcast. After 20 years under the Pygmalion-like direction of his older partner, Walter, Aaron at last decides it is time to stop letting life happen to him and to take control of his own fate.
By: Lori Ostlund
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A disastrous error on the field sends five lives into a tailspin in this award-nominated tale about love, life, and baseball. At Westish College, a small school on the shore of Lake Michigan, baseball star Henry Skrimshander seems destined for big league stardom. But when a routine throw goes disastrously off course, the fates of five people are upended. As the season counts down to its climactic final game, these five are forced to confront their deepest hopes, anxieties, and secrets. In the process they forge new bonds, and help one another find their true paths.
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The summer that Nixon resigns, six teenagers at a summer camp for the arts become inseparable. Decades later the bond remains powerful, but so much else has changed. In The Interestings, Wolitzer follows these characters from the height of youth through middle age, as their talents, fortunes, and degrees of satisfaction diverge. The kind of creativity that is rewarded at age 15 is not always enough to propel someone through life at age 30; not everyone can sustain, in adulthood, what seemed so special in adolescence.
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Needs a better title, but a good read (listen)
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Guido and Vincent, best friends (and third cousins), aren’t expecting to fall head-over-heels in love, but that is exactly what happens. Guido is smitten with Holly, a dazzling young woman who chafes at the idea of complacency, while Vincent falls for Misty, a work colleague with an acerbic sense of humor who seems as uninterested in romance as she is in Vincent (at first). In the months that follow, both couples will experience the rituals of courtship, jealousy, estrangement, family entanglements, and other perils of the heart as they try to find love in spite of themselves.
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Anything but middle.
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The stories in Fresh Complaint explore equally rich—and intriguing—territory. Ranging from the bitingly reproductive antics of “Baster” to the dreamy, moving account of a young traveler’s search for enlightenment in “Air Mail” (selected by Annie Proulx for Best American Short Stories), this collection presents characters in the midst of personal and national emergencies. We meet a failed poet who, envious of other people’s wealth during the real-estate bubble, becomes an embezzler; a clavichordist whose dreams of art founder under the obligations of marriage and fatherhood.
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A disastrous error on the field sends five lives into a tailspin in this award-nominated tale about love, life, and baseball. At Westish College, a small school on the shore of Lake Michigan, baseball star Henry Skrimshander seems destined for big league stardom. But when a routine throw goes disastrously off course, the fates of five people are upended. As the season counts down to its climactic final game, these five are forced to confront their deepest hopes, anxieties, and secrets. In the process they forge new bonds, and help one another find their true paths.
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Don't buy into the hype
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The Interestings
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The summer that Nixon resigns, six teenagers at a summer camp for the arts become inseparable. Decades later the bond remains powerful, but so much else has changed. In The Interestings, Wolitzer follows these characters from the height of youth through middle age, as their talents, fortunes, and degrees of satisfaction diverge. The kind of creativity that is rewarded at age 15 is not always enough to propel someone through life at age 30; not everyone can sustain, in adulthood, what seemed so special in adolescence.
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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.
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How do narrators still do clownish stuff like this in 2021?
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Fates and Furies
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From the award-winning, New York Times best-selling author of The Monsters of Templeton, Arcadia, Florida and Matrix, an exhilarating novel about marriage, creativity, art, and perception. Fates and Furies is a literary masterpiece that defies expectation. A dazzling examination of a marriage, it is also a portrait of creative partnership written by one of the best writers of her generation. Every story has two sides. Every relationship has two perspectives.
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Paean to Marriage, Mythology and Theatre
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The Marriage Portrait
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Florence, the 1550s. Lucrezia, third daughter of the grand duke, is comfortable with her obscure place in the palazzo: free to wonder at its treasures, observe its clandestine workings, and to devote herself to her own artistic pursuits. But when her older sister dies on the eve of her wedding, Lucrezia is thrust into the limelight: the duke is quick to request her hand in marriage, and her father just as quick to accept on her behalf. Having barely left girlhood behind, Lucrezia must make her way in a court whose customs are opaque and where her arrival is not universally welcomed.
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If You Love Alternate Histories, Get This
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Beautiful World, Where Are You
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- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Alice, a novelist, meets Felix, who works in a warehouse, and asks him if he’d like to travel to Rome with her. In Dublin, her best friend, Eileen, is getting over a breakup, and slips back into flirting with Simon, a man she has known since childhood. Alice, Felix, Eileen, and Simon are still young - but life is catching up with them. Are they standing in the last lighted room before the darkness, bearing witness to something? Will they find a way to believe in a beautiful world?
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Passes my test!
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The Stationery Shop
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
On the eve of their marriage, Roya agrees to meet Bahman at the town square, but suddenly, violence erupts - a result of the coup d’etat that forever changes their country’s future. In the chaos, Bahman never shows. For weeks, Roya tries desperately to contact him, but her efforts are fruitless. With a sorrowful heart, she resigns herself to never seeing him again. Until, more than 60 years later, an accident of fate leads her back to Bahman and offers her a chance to ask him the questions that have haunted her for more than half a century.
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Beautiful Story
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By: Marjan Kamali
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Normal People
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Connell and Marianne grew up in the same small town, but the similarities end there. At school, Connell is popular and well liked, while Marianne is a loner. But when the two strike up a conversation - awkward but electrifying - something life changing begins. A year later, they’re both studying at Trinity College in Dublin. Marianne has found her feet in a new social world while Connell hangs at the sidelines, shy and uncertain. Throughout their years at university, Marianne and Connell circle one another.
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Difficult, but Worth It
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By: Sally Rooney
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My Lovely Wife
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Our love story is simple. I met a gorgeous woman. We fell in love. We had kids. We moved to the suburbs. We told each other our biggest dreams and our darkest secrets. And then we got bored. We look like a normal couple. We're your neighbors, the parents of your kid's friend, the acquaintances with whom you keep meaning to get dinner. We all have our secrets to keeping a marriage alive. Ours just happens to be getting away with murder.
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Great narrator! Crazy story!
- By EasyBreezySunflower on 03-28-19
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The Night Watchman
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- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Based on the extraordinary life of National Book Award-winning author Louise Erdrich’s grandfather who worked as a night watchman and carried the fight against Native dispossession from rural North Dakota all the way to Washington, DC, this powerful novel explores themes of love and death with lightness and gravity and unfolds with the elegant prose, sly humor, and depth of feeling of a master craftsman.
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Beautiful
- By Melanie on 03-09-20
By: Louise Erdrich
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Romantic Comedy (Reese's Book Club)
- A Novel
- By: Curtis Sittenfeld
- Narrated by: Kristen Sieh
- Length: 9 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Sally Milz is a sketch writer for The Night Owls, a late-night live comedy show that airs every Saturday. With a couple of heartbreaks under her belt, she’s long abandoned the search for love, settling instead for the occasional hook-up, career success, and a close relationship with her stepfather to round out a satisfying life. But when Sally’s friend and fellow writer Danny Horst begins dating Annabel, a glamorous actress who guest-hosted the show, he joins the not-so-exclusive group of talented but average-looking and even dorky men at the show.
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Not really for me
- By Emma on 04-19-23
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The Goldfinch
- By: Donna Tartt
- Narrated by: David Pittu
- Length: 32 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
The Goldfinch is a haunted odyssey through present-day America and a drama of enthralling force and acuity. It begins with a boy. Theo Decker, a 13-year-old New Yorker, miraculously survives an accident that kills his mother. Abandoned by his father, Theo is taken in by the family of a wealthy friend. Bewildered by his strange new home on Park Avenue, disturbed by schoolmates who don't know how to talk to him, and tormented above all by his unbearable longing for his mother, he clings to one thing that reminds him of her: a small, mysteriously captivating painting that ultimately draws Theo into the underworld of art.
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Boy, am I in the minority on this one.
- By Bonny on 11-04-13
By: Donna Tartt
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Crime and Punishment
- Pevear & Volokhonsky Translation (Vintage Classics)
- By: Fyodor Dostoevsky
- Narrated by: Peter Batchelor
- Length: 25 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
With the same suppleness, energy, and range of voices that won their translation of The Brothers Karamazov the PEN/Book-of-the-Month Club Prize, Pevear and Volokhonsky offer a brilliant translation of Dostoevsky's classic novel that presents a clear insight into this astounding psychological thriller. This audio edition of Crime and Punishment is expressively brought to life by Peter Batchelor.
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waited for this translation
- By L. Kerr on 12-22-20
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Such a Fun Age
- Reese's Book Club (A Novel)
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Overall
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Alix Chamberlain is a woman who gets what she wants and has made a living, with her confidence-driven brand, showing other women how to do the same. So she is shocked when her babysitter, Emira Tucker, is confronted while watching the Chamberlains' toddler one night, walking the aisles of their local high-end supermarket. The store's security guard, seeing a young Black woman out late with a White child, accuses Emira of kidnapping two-year-old Briar. A small crowd gathers, a bystander films everything, and Emira is furious and humiliated. Alix resolves to make things right.
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This is embarrassing!
- By Anonymous User on 01-31-20
By: Kiley Reid
What listeners say about The Marriage Plot
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- FanB14
- 03-13-13
Esoteric, Vapid, Trite
Were my expectations too high after "The Virgin Suicides" and "Middlesex"? Perhaps it's unfair to place such expectations on a brilliant writer.
I didn't connect with the characters and found them to be whiny, self-absorbed and devoid of personality. The narrator was positively horrible when voicing female characters. Please listen to the sample if you do purchase this book.
The pretentious details and plot the vapid characters wade through was exhausting. Stayed with the book until the last word waiting for an epiphany or a satisfying conclusion, alas to no end. Numerous references to Victorian Brit list were ostentacious and my degrees are in this subject matter.
Enter at your own risk.
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70 people found this helpful
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- L. Kerr
- 10-15-11
Pride and Prejudice, updated
Having enjoyed listening to audiobooks of Jeffrey Eugenides’ first two novels, "The Virgin Suicide" and "Middlesex," I looked forward to this one.
What exactly is a “marriage plot”? We encounter it frequently in novels and films. Wikipedia defines it as follows: “Marriage plot is a term used, often in academic circles, to categorize a storyline that recurs in novels most prominently and in films most recently. Until the expansion of marriage rights to same-sex couples, this plot centered exclusively on the courtship rituals between a man and a woman and the obstacles that faced the potential couple on its way to the nuptial payoff. The marriage plot became a popular source of entertainment in the 18th and 19th centuries with the rise of the bourgeois novel. The foremost practitioners of the form include some of the more illustrious names in English letters, among them Samuel Richardson, Jane Austen, George Eliot and the Brontë sisters.”
As I listened to the travails of the young, Ivy League, literati in Eugenides version of a modern day marriage plot, I thought no so much of the novels of Jane Austen and Henry James, but of the many times Shakespeare used it in his plays: by my count 23. Eugenedes puts his own spin on the marriage plot and does so in fast paced, clearly written, and enjoyable fashion. If I had one criticism, it is that his third novel does not have the same subtle Kalfkaesque strangeness which the subject matter of his first two novels afforded (suicide in "The Virgin Suicides," and genetic variation in "Middlesex"). It seemed Eugenedes attempted to use the topics of religion (Mitchell ) and mental illness (Leonard) to achieve the same effect, but fell a little short. This might have been from Eugenides' pre-conceived plan to pay homage to earlier novelists rather than create something new and non-derivative. Still, I enjoyed this novel enough to give it the highest marks.
With regard to the narrator’s performance, I don’t think he could have done a better job. His casting was perfect, and you could always tell which character was speaking.
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60 people found this helpful
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- Amanda
- 12-04-11
A Great Deal More Than Meets The Eye
I repeatedly disregarded this selection, worried it would be a trite romance story that would have little to engage me. I was wrong.
The year is 1982, and three young people are graduating from Brown University. They have qualities that are often found in young graduates; very sure of their own opinions, very proud of their own intellect, and perhaps a bit unaware of their own self-indulgence. Most of us have been there; it's easy for the world to appear "black and white" when you're young.
For me, this book was a beautiful, smart, and effective novel of how people transition from those qualities, to adults that better understand the difficult, complicated realities of the "real world". The story is everything the characters are not; it's self aware, humble, and honest. It took situations that are often glossed over or romanticized, and instead presented them in realistic terms; addressing mental illness, poverty, and the unexpected consequences that so often follow rash decisions. It was refreshing to see these presented as they really are.
This could sound like a depressing topic; but the book was far from it. It was funny, sensitive, and insightful. The story begins at Brown, but travels to France, Monaco, Greece, and India. The unique way the narrative moves backwards and forwards in time highlighted how often we work off of partial information; having you form one opinion of an event, only to go back later and provide more information that may make you re-think your opinion.
I loved this book. For me, it's one of those novels that makes it hard to pick the next book, because you don't want another one - you want more of this story, of these people. I'm so glad I finally gave it a chance.
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46 people found this helpful
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- Kay
- 11-24-11
I Think I'm in Love
To paraphrase (very loosely) somebody: a story without enlightenment is a "beach read"; enlightenment without a story is a textbook. This book has both.
The plot similarities to Franzen's last book (student love triangle extended beyond college) are certainly present, but the similarities end there.The characters in "Freedom" are viewed with such ironic detachment that, although amusing and interesting for awhile (the first part of the novel made a brilliant short story in the New Yorker) their lives become tedious and, ultimately,because it goes on for too long, I was anxious for the book to end.
On the contrary, Eugenides' characters are much more real and sympathetic (appealing, even) and I don't want their story to end. I'm sure Mr. Eugenides is tired of having his work compared to Mr. Franzen's but I just had to jump in on this.
The performance in this audible production is outstanding. The narrator's rendition of the character of Leonard is so good I'm almost falling in love with him myself. I looked for other Audible offerings by this narrator and find that his talents are being under-utilized. He should be employed for books more like this one.
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42 people found this helpful
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- ibillinsly@gmail
- 03-02-18
Pretentious? The Marriage Plot? Surely Not...
Would you consider the audio edition of The Marriage Plot to be better than the print version?
I have not read the print version, but I would consider this audio version to be better. I downloaded this title as much for David Pittu's narration as I did for Eugenides' writing. Both were phenomenal.
What other book might you compare The Marriage Plot to and why?
I would compare Eugenides' writing to that of Franzen. If you like Freedom or The Corrections or even Purity, you will like The Marriage Plot. The writing is very intelligent and insightful. The characters are well-developed, and the reader gains access to their innermost thoughts, feelings, and fears.
Which scene was your favorite?
I don't have a favorite scene. This novel doesn't have a lot of peaks and valleys as far as excitement or the quality of the writing. It's a slow progressing yet interesting novel.
If you could rename The Marriage Plot, what would you call it?
The Marriage Plight
Any additional comments?
I've noticed some reviewers referred to this novel as pretentious. It's not. It's just a well written story. There are numerous references to classic literature, but it's not necessary to get them all. As always, David Pittu narrates this novel perfectly. If you're looking for a page turner, this might not be for you. If you're looking for phenomenal writing combined with phenomenal narration, give The Marriage Plot a listen.
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19 people found this helpful
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- Doggy Bird
- 07-29-12
Very enjoyable modern but literary novel
I thought the narration was really excellent for this story which has many characters, both male and female. The reader had different voices for the different characters which added to my enjoyment of the story and both men and women were believable. I will look for other books read by David PIttu in the future.
The story has many layers and can be read as a modern story of love and romance alone which in itself is a satisfying part of the book. What I particularly liked about the book as a lover of novels is the meta story which explores the evolution of the novel and the potential of that form in more modern times as the social mores, especially the role of marriage have changed.
For those who feast on Jane Austen or Anthony Trollope it will be hard to resist a book which opens with the contents of one of the main character's bookshelves and moves forward from there. In fact the story is so ambitious from a literary perspective I feared I would be disappointed. But the structure of the story is its most successful aspect. The author also does a wonderful job of inhabiting the three main characters and making them sympathetic.
I don't know if readers who don't love novels will love hearing about semiotics and great 19th century novelists, but as someone who does I can highly recommend this book to others like myself. It is not heavy reading but there are a lot of references to 19th century authors and texts and I think literary minded readers may enjoy it more than others.
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15 people found this helpful
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- Taryn
- 11-08-11
realistic
I enjoyed listening to this book probably because I am living a little bit of this story with my 3 adult children right now. Eugenides describes them and their peers to a tee, their lifestyle, their behaviors, their beliefs that by being privledged and intellectual they have somehow reinvented life, love, sex, relationships, marriage, work, etc..... I think he did a great job of updating the marriage plot and I was neither bored nor disapointed. This is not, Middlesex, but it has its own merits and I think he succeeds.
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13 people found this helpful
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- Nate
- 04-07-13
Not pretentious; just smart.
What made the experience of listening to The Marriage Plot the most enjoyable?
Some have called this book pretentious, but I think anytime an author's main characters are moderately intelligent, it can turn off the more pedestrian among us. I am tired of reading about dumb people, and also quite glad to see the brokenness and truth with which Eugenides handles his characters, as well as the inter-relationships and complexities of smart college students trying to find themselves. To the first half of this book I would give a solid 5 stars, but somehow it gets a tad tedious yet still very well-written in the latter half. This man has chops, and I am definitely picking up Middlesex soon. As for the reader, Pittu blows the door off its hinges by smoothly transitioning between characters, gender, and accents. I would love to hear more from him.
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11 people found this helpful
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- Denise
- 11-21-11
Another great book from Jeffrey Eugenides
As soon as I finished listening I began the book again. This is an excellent read, very complex, with many literary references, but it's OK if one doesn't get them all. Great snapshots of early adulthood angst as well as middle age parenthood, done with some humor. The narrator is excellent.
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11 people found this helpful
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- connie
- 10-22-11
reframing marriage plot, post industrial, post mdn
Like one of the 19th Brit masterpieces centered on the marriage plot, you can get lost in this listen just through the characters, story and gentle social comedy of manners; however, instead of examining an ISSUE through its plot, it's a bit Orlando-like in examining the state of narrative fiction (post-post modern in disguise?).
Though set in the 1980s, it seems really to be about narrative fiction today, much like the traditional masterpiece referents were often written slightly out of the timeframe they address. I rated it overall as a only 4 star listen because I did not think the narrator the best voice for all three major characters, and at my age, narrative fiction (even at its best) about 20th century 20- something Ivy Leaguers, WASP and otherwise, is not my first choice of subject matter.
Long live the novel, and the marriage plot, however they emerge in western postindustrial, post modern society. Both are worth the journey in this listen.
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10 people found this helpful