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Inside the Dream Palace
- The Life and Times of New York's Legendary Chelsea Hotel
- Narrated by: Carol Monda
- Length: 15 hrs and 23 mins
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Publisher's summary
The next best thing to having a room key to the Chelsea Hotel during each of its famous - and infamous - decades The Chelsea Hotel, since its founding by a visionary French architect in 1884, has been an icon of American invention: a cultural dynamo and haven for the counterculture, all in one astonishing building. Sherill Tippins, author of the acclaimed February House, delivers a masterful and endlessly entertaining history of the Chelsea and of the successive generations of artists who have cohabited and created there, among them John Sloan, Edgar Lee Masters, Thomas Wolfe, Dylan Thomas, Arthur Miller, Allen Ginsberg, Bob Dylan, Janis Joplin, Leonard Cohen, Patti Smith, Robert Mapplethorpe, Andy Warhol, Sam Shepard, Sid Vicious, and Dee Dee Ramone. Now as legendary as the artists it has housed and the countless creative collaborations it has sparked, the Chelsea has always stood as a mystery as well: Why and how did this hotel become the largest and longest-lived artists’ community in the known world? Inside the Dream Palace is the intimate and definitive story.
Today the Chelsea stands poised in limbo between two futures: Will this symbol of New York's artistic invention be converted to a profit-driven business catering to the top one percent? Or will the Chelsea be given a rebirth through painstaking effort by the community that loves it? Set against these two competing possibilities, Inside the Dream Palace could not be more fascinating or timely.
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-
Riveted for 1591 miles
- By Kaysi12 on 04-11-16
By: Tracy Daugherty
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When Paris Sizzled
- The 1920s Paris of Hemingway, Chanel, Cocteau, Cole Porter, Josephine Baker, and Their Friends
- By: Mary McAuliffe
- Narrated by: Saskia Maarleveld
- Length: 11 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 90
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 81
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 82
When Paris Sizzled vividly portrays the City of Light during the fabulous 1920s, les Annees folles, when Parisians emerged from the horrors of war to find that a new world greeted them - one that reverberated with the hard metallic clang of the assembly line, the roar of automobiles, and the beat of jazz. Mary McAuliffe traces a decade that saw seismic change on almost every front, from art and architecture to music, literature, fashion, entertainment, transportation, and, most notably, behavior.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Informative, but no sizzle
- By OzEnigma on 06-01-17
By: Mary McAuliffe
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Everybody Thought We Were Crazy
- Dennis Hopper, Brooke Hayward, and 1960s Los Angeles
- By: Mark Rozzo
- Narrated by: Jason Culp
- Length: 12 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 78
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 65
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 65
Los Angeles in the 1960s: riots in Watts and on the Sunset Strip, wild weekends in Malibu, late nights at The Daisy discotheque, openings at the Ferus Gallery, and the convergence of pop art, rock and roll, and the New Hollywood. At the center of it all, one inspired, improbable, and highly combustible couple—Dennis Hopper and Brooke Hayward—lived out the emblematic love story of ’60s L.A.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Stick with it
- By Harry Seaward on 08-23-22
By: Mark Rozzo
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Empire of Self
- A Life of Gore Vidal
- By: Jay Parini
- Narrated by: John Lescault
- Length: 16 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 100
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 89
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 89
The product of 30 years of friendship and conversation, Jay Parini's Empire of Self probes behind the glittering surface of Gore Vidal's colorful life to reveal the complex emotional and sexual truth underlying his celebrity-strewn life. But there is plenty of glittering surface as well - a virtual who's who of the American Century, from Eleanor Roosevelt and Amelia Earhart through the Kennedys, Princess Margaret, and the creme de la creme of Hollywood.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Well done!
- By Christopher on 03-22-16
By: Jay Parini
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City Boy
- My Life in New York During the 1960s and '70s
- By: Edmund White
- Narrated by: Robert Blumenfeld
- Length: 9 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 72
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 66
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Story4 out of 5 stars 67
In the New York of the 1970s, in the wake of Stonewall and in the midst of economic collapse, you might find the likes of Jasper Johns and William Burroughs at the next cocktail party, and you were as likely to be caught arguing Marx at the New York City Ballet as cruising for sex in the warehouses and parked trucks along the Hudson. This is the New York that Edmund White portrays in City Boy: a place of enormous intrigue and artistic tumult.
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1 out of 5 stars
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Pretense upon pretense.
- By Shalin Desai on 06-01-15
By: Edmund White
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John Lennon
- The Life
- By: Philip Norman
- Narrated by: Graeme Malcolm
- Length: 12 hrs and 52 mins
- Abridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 157
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 121
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Story4 out of 5 stars 120
Philip Norman turns his formidable talent to the Beatle for whom belonging to the world's most beloved pop group was never enough. Drawing on previously untapped sources, and with unprecedented access to all the major characters, here is the definitive portrait of John Lennon. This biography takes a fresh and penetrating look at Lennon's much-chronicled life, including the songs that have turned him, posthumously, into almost a secular saint.
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1 out of 5 stars
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Really Bad Abridgement Job (slash job)
- By Let's Be Reasonable on 12-04-08
By: Philip Norman
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St. Marks Is Dead
- The Many Lives of America's Hippest Street
- By: Ada Calhoun
- Narrated by: Carla Mercer-Meyer
- Length: 10 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 39
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 35
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 35
St. Marks Place in New York City has spawned countless artistic and political movements. Here Frank O'Hara caroused, Emma Goldman plotted, and the Velvet Underground wailed. But every generation of miscreant denizens believes that their era, and no other, marked the street's apex.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Wonderful history of a wonderful place.
- By bsolo on 11-07-15
By: Ada Calhoun
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Rebel Souls
- Walt Whitman and America's First Bohemians
- By: Justin Martin
- Narrated by: Dennis Holland
- Length: 10 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 32
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 31
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 31
Rebel Souls is the first book ever written about the colorful group of artists - regulars at Pfaff's Saloon in Manhattan - rightly considered America's original Bohemians. Besides a young Whitman, the circle included actor Edwin Booth; trailblazing stand–up comic Artemus Ward; psychedelic drug pioneer and author Fitz Hugh Ludlow; and brazen performer Adah Menken, famous for her Naked Lady routine. Central to their times, the artists managed to forge connections with Ralph Waldo Emerson, Mark Twain, and even Abraham Lincoln.
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5 out of 5 stars
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A Wonderful Read with Vibrant Characters
- By A on 11-11-15
By: Justin Martin
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The Great Escape
- Nine Jews Who Fled Hitler and Changed the World
- By: Kati Marton
- Narrated by: Anna Fields
- Length: 9 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 77
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 39
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 37
The stunning story of the breathtaking journey of nine extraordinary men from Budapest to the New World, what they experienced along their dangerous route, and how they changed America and the world. In a style both personal and historically groundbreaking, acclaimed author Kati Marton (born in Budapest) tells the tale of their youth in Budapest's Golden Age of the early 20th century, their flight, and their lives of extraordinary accomplishment, danger, glamour, and poignancy.
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3 out of 5 stars
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very interesting, well-narrated
- By D. Littman on 12-17-06
By: Kati Marton
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Beatles '66
- The Revolutionary Year
- By: Steve Turner
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 12 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 358
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 304
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 304
The year that changed everything for the Beatles was 1966 - the year of their last concert and of Revolver, their first album created to be listened to rather than performed. This was the year the Beatles risked their popularity by retiring from live performances, recording songs that explored alternative states of consciousness, experimenting with avant-garde ideas, and speaking their minds on issues of politics, war, and religion. Music journalist and Beatles expert Steve Turner investigates the enormous changes that took place in the Beatles' lives and work during 1966.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Great listen
- By Tad Davis on 07-28-18
By: Steve Turner
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Bop Apocalypse
- Jazz, Race, the Beats, and Drugs
- By: Martin Torgoff
- Narrated by: Roger Wayne
- Length: 13 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 32
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 30
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 30
Martin Torgoff details the rise of early drug culture in America by weaving together the disparate elements that formed this new segment of the American fabric. Channeling his decades of writing experience, Torgoff connects the birth of jazz in New Orleans, the first drug laws, Louis Armstrong, the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, swing, Lester Young, Billie Holiday, the Savoy Ballroom, Charlie Parker, the birth of bebop, the rise of the Beat Generation, and the launch of heroin in Harlem.
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5 out of 5 stars
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fascinating read
- By Ryan on 06-27-17
By: Martin Torgoff
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And So It Goes
- Kurt Vonnegut: A Life
- By: Charles J. Shields
- Narrated by: Fred Berman
- Length: 17 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 79
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 73
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 75
New York Times best-selling author and biographer Charles J. Shields crafts this fascinating portrait of literary icon Kurt Vonnegut. The first authorized biography of the influential American writer, And So It Goes examines Vonnegut’s life, from his childhood to his death in 2007, and explores how the author changed the conversation of American literature.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Probably only for die hard Vonnegut fans
- By Watery M on 12-22-12
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The Curse of Beauty
- The Scandalous & Tragic Life of Audrey Munson, America's First Supermodel
- By: James Bone
- Narrated by: Marianne Fraulo
- Length: 10 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 88
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 83
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Story4 out of 5 stars 82
As America was stepping into the modern era, one great beauty became the artist's model of choice. Her perfect form became the emblem of the Gilded Age and appears on the greatest monuments of New York and the nation. Supermodel, actress, icon - her beauty paved the way for a life of glamour, passion, and ultimately tragedy. Her name is Audrey Munson.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Fascinating
- By Аmazon Customer on 04-06-17
By: James Bone
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Flapper
- A Madcap Story of Sex, Style, Celebrity, and the Women Who Made America Modern
- By: Joshua Zeitz
- Narrated by: Daniella Rabbani
- Length: 11 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 90
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Performance3.5 out of 5 stars 77
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Story4 out of 5 stars 77
Blithely flinging aside the Victorian manners that kept her disapproving mother corseted, the New Woman of the 1920's puffed cigarettes, snuck gin, hiked her hemlines, danced the Charleston, and necked in roadsters. More important, she earned her own keep, controlled her own destiny, and secured liberties that modern women take for granted. Her newfound freedom heralded a radical change in American culture.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Good Book, Poor Performance
- By redsrule1 on 03-16-14
By: Joshua Zeitz
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My Song
- A Memoir
- By: Harry Belafonte, Michael Shnayerson
- Narrated by: Harry Belafonte, Mirron Willis
- Length: 19 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 156
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 140
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 139
Harry Belafonte is not just one of the greatest entertainers of our time; he has led one of the great American lives of the last century. Now, this extraordinary icon tells us the story of that life, giving us its full breadth, letting us share in the struggles, the tragedies, and, most of all, the inspiring triumphs.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Amazing
- By Khafre on 12-30-11
By: Harry Belafonte, and others
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Paul McCartney
- A Life
- By: Peter Ames Carlin
- Narrated by: John Lee
- Length: 13 hrs
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 200
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 134
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Story4 out of 5 stars 136
The best-selling author of the definitive biography of former Beach Boy Brian Wilson offers new insight into the life and music of Paul McCartney, one of the world's most popular and influential musicians. Informed by new, exclusive interviews with friends, bandmates, and collaborators, the book describes McCartney's many triumphs as well as his failures, from the Beatles era through his decade with Wings and his subsequent solo career.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Great...But
- By Diego on 05-02-10
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Uncommon People
- The Rise and Fall of The Rock Stars
- By: David Hepworth
- Narrated by: Matthew Lloyd Davies
- Length: 10 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 56
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 50
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 50
The age of the rock star, like the age of the cowboy, has passed. Like the cowboy, the idea of the rock star lives on in our imaginations. What did we see in them? Swagger. Recklessness. Sexual charisma. Damn-the-torpedoes self-belief. A certain way of carrying themselves. Good hair. Interesting shoes. Talent we wished we had. What did we want of them? To be larger than life but also like us. To live out their songs. To stay young forever. No wonder many didn't stay the course.
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5 out of 5 stars
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INSIGHTFULL!
- By CLAUDIA R KENNEDY on 02-18-18
By: David Hepworth
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1959
- The Year Everything Changed
- By: Fred Kaplan
- Narrated by: Joe Barrett
- Length: 10 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 141
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 97
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Story4 out of 5 stars 96
Acclaimed national security columnist and noted cultural critic Fred Kaplan looks past the 1960s to the year that really changed AmericaWhile conventional accounts focus on the 60s as the era of pivotal change that swept the nation, Fred Kaplan argues that it was 1959 that ushered in the wave of tremendous cultural, political, and scientific shifts that would play out in the decades that followed.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Facinating look at a neglected moment in history
- By James on 05-25-11
By: Fred Kaplan
What listeners say about Inside the Dream Palace
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- Lori K.
- 12-22-15
dope and hostess cupcakes
This one took awhile for me to finish, but ultimately was a good listen. It's a LONG parade of residents, but never boring. Musicians, painters, writers, actors...all entertainingly human with their aspirations, ideas, foibles, and coping strategies. With this book, you get not just the details of the residents and their projects, but the history of the construction of the building, its owners, and their philosophies. Bonus: Carol Monda is the perfect narrator for this!
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Christine
- 04-29-15
Fascinating read
Lived around the corner during 70's & 80's and found research brilliant.
A must read for NYC artists etc
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Overall2 out of 5 stars
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Performance2 out of 5 stars
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Story2 out of 5 stars
- Elaine Kehew
- 03-30-16
Not worth it if you know this milieu
Would you try another book from Sherill Tippins and/or Carol Monda?
no, I don't think so
What was most disappointing about Sherill Tippins’s story?
While well-researched, there was very little that I hadn't heard via other sources-- very little first-hand accounts or primary sources. A lot of the Patti Smith era stuff was lifted from 'Just Kids'. Disappointing, and without a clear narrative line.
Who would you have cast as narrator instead of Carol Monda?
Someone cool! How about someone who could pronounce the names correctly?
What reaction did this book spark in you? Anger, sadness, disappointment?
disappointment
Any additional comments?
too bad- great concept
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2 people found this helpful