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The Swan Book
- Narrated by: Jacqui Katona
- Length: 13 hrs and 1 min
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The Swan Book
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Publisher's summary
The new novel by Alexis Wright, whose previous novel, Carpentaria, won the Miles Franklin Award and four other major prizes including the ABIA Literary Fiction Book of the Year Award.
The Swan Book is set in the future, with Aboriginals still living under the Intervention in the north, in an environment fundamentally altered by climate change. It follows the life of a mute teenager called Oblivia, the victim of gang rape by petrol-sniffing youths, from the displaced community where she lives in a hulk, in a swamp filled with rusting boats and thousands of black swans driven from other parts of the country, to her marriage to Warren Finch, the first Aboriginal president of Australia, and her elevation to the position of first lady, confined to a tower in a flooded and lawless southern city.
The Swan Book has all the qualities which made Wright's previous novel, Carpentaria, a prize-winning best seller. It offers an intimate awareness of the realities facing Aboriginal people; the wild energy and humour in her writing finds hope in the bleakest situations; and the remarkable combination of storytelling elements drawn from myth and legend and fairy tale.
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- By: Martín Prechtel
- Narrated by: Martín Prechtel
- Length: 5 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 33
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 30
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Story5 out of 5 stars 30
Martín Prechtel revives a hitherto unknown Guatemalan Tzutujil Mayan tale of the beginnings of the world with a poetic retelling of the story. Prechtel authoritatively retells the powerful tale of the Tall Girl who weaves the world in a loom, her parents the Sun and the Moon who repudiate her suitors, and the mysterious man who disguises himself as a hummingbird to lure her away.
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5 out of 5 stars
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A magnificent story of many meanings
- By Amazon Customer on 11-08-22
By: Martín Prechtel
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Borne
- By: Jeff VanderMeer
- Narrated by: Bahni Turpin
- Length: 12 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 1,637
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 1,470
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Story4 out of 5 stars 1,469
In Borne, a young woman named Rachel survives as a scavenger in a ruined city half destroyed by drought and conflict. The city is dangerous, littered with discarded experiments from the Company - a biotech firm now derelict - and punished by the unpredictable predations of a giant bear. Rachel ekes out an existence in the shelter of a run-down sanctuary she shares with her partner, Wick, who deals his own homegrown psychoactive biotech.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Bizarre and Bracing!
- By The Casual Nerd on 02-08-18
By: Jeff VanderMeer
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A Grain of Wheat
- By: Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o
- Narrated by: Ron Butler
- Length: 10 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 42
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 34
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 33
Set in the wake of the Mau Mau rebellion and on the cusp of Kenya's independence from Britain, A Grain of Wheat follows a group of villagers whose lives have been transformed by the 1952-1960 Emergency. At the center of it all is the reticent Mugo, the village's chosen hero and a man haunted by a terrible secret. As we learn of the villagers' tangled histories in a narrative interwoven with myth and peppered with allusions to real-life leaders, including Jomo Kenyatta, a masterly story unfolds in which compromises are forced, friendships are betrayed, and loves are tested.
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5 out of 5 stars
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One of Kenya's Great
- By Afro History fan on 07-31-19
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Leaves of Grass
- By: Walt Whitman
- Narrated by: Robin Field
- Length: 18 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 208
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 147
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Story4 out of 5 stars 150
One of the great innovators in American letters, Walt Whitman created a daringly new kind of poetry that became a major force in world literature. Leaves of Grass is his masterpiece, written in a pure, uninhibited style, combining sensual and mystical sensibilities. Its bold, joyous voice, its expansive optimism, and its transcendental vision made it uniquely American.
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4 out of 5 stars
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No chapters! Can't skip to a particular poem :(
- By April Antoniou on 02-08-13
By: Walt Whitman
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1919
- By: Eve L. Ewing
- Narrated by: Eve L. Ewing
- Length: 1 hr and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 43
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 39
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Story5 out of 5 stars 39
The Chicago Race Riot of 1919, the most intense of the riots comprising the nation's Red Summer, has shaped the last century but is not widely discussed. In 1919, award-winning poet Eve L. Ewing explores the story of this event - which lasted eight days and resulted in 38 deaths and almost 500 injuries - through poems recounting the stories of everyday people trying to survive and thrive in the city. Ewing uses speculative and Afrofuturist lenses to recast history and illuminates the thin line between the past and the present.
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5 out of 5 stars
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visceral felt and poetically read
- By BF J.V. on 01-30-24
By: Eve L. Ewing
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What Storm, What Thunder
- By: Myriam J.A. Chancy
- Narrated by: Ella Turenne
- Length: 11 hrs
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 56
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 53
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 53
The Earth had buckled, and, in that movement, all that was not in its place fell upon the Earth’s children, upon the blameless as well as the guilty, without discrimination. At the end of a long sweltering day, as markets and businesses begin to close for the evening, an earthquake of 7.0 magnitude shakes the capital of Haiti, Port-au-Prince. Award-winning author Myriam J. A. Chancy masterfully charts the inner lives of the characters affected by the disaster
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5 out of 5 stars
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We need the storm, the whirlwind, and the earthquake.
- By AuthorAnnaBella on 03-15-22
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Creatures of Passage
- By: Morowa Yejidé
- Narrated by: Morowa Yejidé
- Length: 10 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 117
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 101
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 101
Nephthys Kinwell is a taxi driver of sorts in Washington, DC, ferrying passengers in a 1967 Plymouth Belvedere with a ghost in the trunk. Endless rides and alcohol help her manage her grief over the death of her twin brother, Osiris, who was murdered and dumped in the Anacostia River. Unknown to Nephthys when the novel opens in 1977, her estranged great-nephew, 10-year-old Dash, is finding himself drawn to the banks of that very same river. It is there that Dash has charmed conversations with a mysterious figure he calls the "River Man".
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5 out of 5 stars
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This is the one
- By just_watching on 04-27-21
By: Morowa Yejidé
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The Last Unicorn
- By: Peter S. Beagle, Patrick Rothfuss
- Narrated by: Orlagh Cassidy, Joshua Kane
- Length: 8 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 408
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 357
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 358
The unicorn lived in a lilac wood, and she lived all alone...so she ventured out from the safety of the enchanted forest on a quest for others of her kind. Joined along the way by the bumbling magician Schmendrick and the indomitable Molly Grue, the unicorn learns all about the joys and sorrows of life and love before meeting her destiny in the castle of a despondent monarch—and confronting the creature that would drive her kind to extinction....
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4 out of 5 stars
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Wonderful story given mediocre treatment in audio
- By David A. Howarth on 08-23-22
By: Peter S. Beagle, and others
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Autumn
- By: Ali Smith
- Narrated by: Melody Grove
- Length: 5 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 496
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 440
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Story4 out of 5 stars 436
Fusing Keatsian mists and mellow fruitfulness with the vitality, the immediacy, and the color hit of Pop Art, Autumn is a witty excavation of the present by the past. The novel is a stripped-branches take on popular culture and a meditation, in a world growing ever more bordered and exclusive, on what richness and worth are, what harvest means.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Incredible use of language
- By Mary on 03-06-17
By: Ali Smith
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The Dream House
- By: Craig Higginson
- Narrated by: Terry Lloyd-Roberts
- Length: 7 hrs
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 43
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 38
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 38
A farmhouse is being reproduced a dozen times, with slight variations, throughout a valley. Three small graves have been dug in the front garden, the middle one lying empty. A woman in a wheelchair sorts through boxes while her husband clambers around the old demolished buildings, wondering where the animals have gone. A young woman – called ‘the barren one’ behind her back – dreams of love, while an ageing headmaster contemplates the end of his life.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Brilliant Dream House Narration
- By Simon Griffiths on 05-05-21
By: Craig Higginson
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Good Poems
- Selected and Introduced by Garrison Keillor
- By: Emily Dickinson, Walt Whitman, Robert Frost, and others
- Narrated by: Garrison Keillor
- Length: 4 hrs and 23 mins
- Abridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 196
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 158
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 147
Good Poems includes poems about lovers, children, failure, everyday life, death, and transcendence. It features the work of classic poets, such as Emily Dickinson, Walt Whitman, and Robert Frost, as well as the work of contemporary greats such as Howard Nemerov, Charles Bukowski, Donald Hall, Billy Collins, Robert Bly, and Sharon Olds Good Poems includes poems about lovers, children, failure, everyday life, death, and transcendence.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Very good, but. . .
- By KSmith on 01-27-11
By: Emily Dickinson, and others
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Two Years Eight Months and Twenty-Eight Nights
- A Novel
- By: Salman Rushdie
- Narrated by: Robert G. Slade
- Length: 11 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 552
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 508
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Story4 out of 5 stars 512
From Salman Rushdie, one of the great writers of our time, comes a spellbinding work of fiction that blends history, mythology, and a timeless love story. A lush, richly layered novel in which our world has been plunged into an age of unreason, Two Years Eight Months and Twenty-Eight Nights is a breathtaking achievement and an enduring testament to the power of storytelling.
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3 out of 5 stars
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1001 whimsical, capricious, and wanton jinn
- By Darwin8u on 09-16-15
By: Salman Rushdie
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Desert Notebooks
- A Road Map for the End of Time
- By: Ben Ehrenreich
- Narrated by: David Bendena
- Length: 11 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 36
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 29
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 29
Layering climate science, mythologies, nature writing, and personal experiences, Desert Notebooks offers a vital and necessary chronicle of our past and our present - perfect for fans of Robert Macfarlane and Elizabeth Rush - that’s unflinching, urgent, and yet timeless and profound.
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1 out of 5 stars
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Not about the desert, Not about Joshua Tree
- By Steve on 07-12-20
By: Ben Ehrenreich
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Lilith
- By: George MacDonald
- Narrated by: Rebecca K. Reynolds
- Length: 11 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 130
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 119
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 119
It is the story of Mr. Vane, an orphan and heir to a large house - a house in which he has a vision that leads him through a large old mirror into another world. In chronicling the five trips Mr. Vane makes to this other world, MacDonald hauntingly explores the ultimate mystery of evil.
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5 out of 5 stars
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INACCESSIBLE BOOK BECOMES ACCESSIBLE AND ENJOYABLE
- By Steve on 07-31-19
By: George MacDonald
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The Satanic Verses
- By: Salman Rushdie
- Narrated by: Sam Dastor
- Length: 21 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 1,844
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 1,600
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Story4 out of 5 stars 1,590
Inextricably linked with the fatwa called against its author in the wake of the novel’s publication, The Satanic Verses is, beyond that, a rich showcase for Salman Rushdie’s comic sensibilities, cultural observations, and unparalleled mastery of language. The book begins with two Indians plummeting from the sky after the explosion of their airliner, and proceeds through a series of metamorphoses, dreams and revelations.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Use an audiobook to really enjoy Satanic Verses
- By David Edelberg on 11-24-12
By: Salman Rushdie
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The Girl with No Name
- By: Marina Chapman
- Narrated by: Pam Ward
- Length: 9 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 405
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 360
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 356
In 1954, in a remote South American village, a four-year-old girl was abducted and then abandoned deep in the Colombian rainforest. So begins the incredible true story of Marina Chapman, who went on to spend several years alone in the jungle, her only family a troop of capuchin monkeys. Using instinct to guide her, she copied everything they did and soon learned to fend for herself. At around 10 years old, a completely feral Marina was returned to civilisation by hunters, who sold her as a slave to a brothel. Beaten daily and groomed to be a prostitute, she escaped - to live the perilous existence of a Colombian city street kid.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Second time
- By Debbie on 05-21-15
By: Marina Chapman
What listeners say about The Swan Book
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall2 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story1 out of 5 stars
- Michael Meder
- 03-18-21
Symbolism with a Big S
I'm going to put aside the audio performance which was lovely and focus this review on the book itself. I do not pretend to have a lot of knowledge about Australia's First Peoples and their plight, outside of what I have gleaned from pop-culture and a screening of "Rabbit Proof Fence". That being said this book is dense with purple prose — symbolism, and what I am sure is allegory. If it is allegory, I don't have the historical context. There is mostly caricature — not character. People talking at each with little to no conversation. It's a lot of telling and not showing. I won't downplay the visuals the book evokes — I would love to see a talent make this into a 30 minute animated short. Not a novel. This was a slog. Not for me.
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