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Second Place
- A Novel
- Narrated by: Kate Fleetwood
- Length: 6 hrs and 18 mins
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Second Place
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Publisher's summary
A haunting fable of art, family, and fate from the author of the Outline trilogy.
A woman invites a famous artist to use her guesthouse in the remote coastal landscape where she lives with her family. Powerfully drawn to his paintings, she believes his vision might penetrate the mystery at the center of her life. But as a long, dry summer sets in, his provocative presence itself becomes an enigma - and disrupts the calm of her secluded household.
Second Place, Rachel Cusk’s electrifying new novel, is a study of female fate and male privilege, the geometries of human relationships, and the moral questions that animate our lives. It reminds us of art’s capacity to uplift - and to destroy.
A Macmillan Audio production from Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Critic reviews
Chicago Tribune Best Books of the Year, 2021
The Guardian (UK) Best Books of the Year, 2021
National Book Critics Circle Award - Nominee, 2021
Publishers Weekly Best Books of the Year, 2021
New York Magazine Best Books of the Year, 2021
Vogue Magazine Best Books of the Year, 2021
Man Booker Award - Nominee, 2021
Time Magazine Best Books of the Year, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Best Books of the Year, 2021
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 78
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 79
Swann’s Way is the first and best-known part of Proust’s monumental work, Remembrance of Things Past. Often compared to a symphony, this complex masterpiece is ideally suited for audio. Listening lets you appreciate anew the incredible beauty of Proust’s language and the uniqueness of his style. The novel’s narrator, Marcel, finds the true meaning of experience in memories stimulated by some random object or event.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Beautiful, BUT
- By Michael on 02-04-13
By: Marcel Proust, and others
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I Am a Cat
- By: Soseki Natsume, Aiko Ito - translator, Graeme Wilson - translator
- Narrated by: David Shih
- Length: 21 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 126
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 107
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 107
Soseki Natsume's comic masterpiece, I Am a Cat, satirizes the foolishness of upper-middle class Japanese society during the Meiji era. With acerbic wit and sardonic perspective, it follows the whimsical adventures of a world-weary stray kitten who comments on the follies and foibles of the people around him. A classic of Japanese literature, I Am a Cat is one of Soseki's best-known novels. Considered by many as the greatest writer in modern Japanese history, Soseki's I Am a Cat is a classic novel sure to be enjoyed for years to come.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Great performance!
- By mz on 04-03-20
By: Soseki Natsume, and others
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Night and Day
- By: Virginia Woolf
- Narrated by: Juliet Stevenson
- Length: 18 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 120
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 108
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 106
Written before she began her experiments in the writing of fiction, Virginia Woolf's second novel, Night and Day, is a story about a group of young people trying to discover what it means to fall in love. It asks all the big questions: What does it mean to fall in love? Does marriage grant happiness? What is happiness? Night and Day is a conventional novel; however, it maps out for us the world of Virginia Woolf in its wondrous prose: For her it was the beginning, leading on to a prolonged engagement with her search for the means to express the "inner life".
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4 out of 5 stars
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"After all, what is love?"
- By Eman Abd Allah on 12-13-16
By: Virginia Woolf
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The Unbearable Lightness of Being
- A Novel
- By: Milan Kundera, Michael Henry Heim - translator
- Narrated by: Richmond Hoxie
- Length: 9 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 2,116
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 1,845
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 1,852
A young woman is in love with a successful surgeon, a man torn between his love for her and his incorrigible womanizing. His mistress, a free-spirited artist, lives her life as a series of betrayals—while her other lover, earnest, faithful, and good, stands to lose everything because of his noble qualities. In a world where lives are shaped by irrevocable choices and fortuitous events, and everything occurs but once, existence seems to lose its substance, its weight. Hence we feel “the unbearable lightness of being."
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4 out of 5 stars
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Love, Politics, and Strange Bedfellows
- By Mel on 07-01-12
By: Milan Kundera, and others
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Immortality
- By: Milan Kundera
- Narrated by: Richmond Hoxie
- Length: 11 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 149
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 125
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 125
Milan Kundera's sixth novel springs from a casual gesture of a woman to her swimming instructor, a gesture that creates a character in the mind of a writer named Kundera. Like Flaubert's Emma or Tolstoy's Anna, Kundera's Agnes becomes an object of fascination, of indefinable longing. From that character springs a novel, a gesture of the imagination that both embodies and articulates Milan Kundera's supreme mastery of the novel and its purpose: to explore thoroughly the great themes of existence.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Cerebral Crosswinds in Parisian fields
- By W Perry Hall on 01-13-14
By: Milan Kundera
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The Prophet
- By: Khalil Gibrán
- Narrated by: Peter Batchelor
- Length: 1 hr and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 84
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 68
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 68
World-famous 26 prose poetry fables written in English by the Lebanese-American poet and writer. It was originally published in 1923. It is Gibran's best known work. The Prophet has been translated into over 100 different languages, making it one of the most translated books in history.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Literally the best book!
- By Amazon Customer on 04-25-20
By: Khalil Gibrán
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Conundrum
- By: Jan Morris
- Narrated by: Roy McMillan
- Length: 5 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall5 out of 5 stars 86
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 77
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Story5 out of 5 stars 76
This remarkable memoir is the classic account of the transgender journey. It is all the more extraordinary because it is the life story of a figure who, it seemed, seamlessly and publicly charted a course through the English establishment - James Morris, outstanding journalist, historian and travel writer, famed for a peerless writing style. But all the while he was concealing a very different inner world: from the age of four he felt that, despite his body, he was really a girl.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Great insight
- By Kelly Houske on 02-02-19
By: Jan Morris
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The Yellow Wallpaper
- By: Charlotte Perkins Gilman
- Narrated by: Jo Myddleton
- Length: 35 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 1,070
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 915
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 909
Instructed to abandon her intellectual life and avoid stimulating company, she sinks into a still-deeper depression invisible to her husband, who believes he knows what is best for her. Alone in the yellow-wallpapered nursery of a rented house, she descends into madness.
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5 out of 5 stars
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A Visceral Reaction
- By Em on 05-02-12
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Siddhartha
- By: Hermann Hesse
- Narrated by: Harish Bhimani
- Length: 4 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 197
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 153
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 149
Hermann Hesse’s classic novel Siddhartha, takes place in ancient India around the time of the Buddha (6th century BC). Siddhartha and his companion Govinda set out in search of enlightenment. Siddhartha goes through a series of changes and realizations as he attempts to achieve this goal. Siddhartha joins the ascetics, visits Gotama, embraces his earthly desires, and finally communes with nature, all in an attempt to attain Nirvana.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Sounds rushed
- By Viviane on 10-17-11
By: Hermann Hesse
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Demian
- By: Hermann Hesse
- Narrated by: Michael A. Smith
- Length: 5 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 70
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 65
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 65
The passionate account of a young man's growing awareness of his own identity, of his involvement in the secret and dangerous world of petty crime, and how, influenced by a precocious schoolmate, he rebels against convention and discovers not only the great joy of independence, but his own new powers for good and evil.
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5 out of 5 stars
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i came here because of kpop
- By Christine K. on 09-07-16
By: Hermann Hesse
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The Promise
- By: Damon Galgut
- Narrated by: Peter Noble
- Length: 9 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 606
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 525
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Story4 out of 5 stars 520
Haunted by an unmet promise, the Swart family loses touch after the death of their matriarch. Adrift, the lives of the three siblings move separately through the uncharted waters of South Africa; Anton, the golden boy who bitterly resents his life’s unfulfilled potential; Astrid, whose beauty is her power; and the youngest, Amor, whose life is shaped by a nebulous feeling of guilt.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Excellent novel
- By ALG on 11-09-21
By: Damon Galgut
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The Dream House
- By: Craig Higginson
- Narrated by: Terry Lloyd-Roberts
- Length: 7 hrs
- Unabridged
-
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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Jenny
- By: Sigrid Undset
- Narrated by: K. G. Cross
- Length: 8 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 30
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 27
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 28
Jenny is the story of Jenny Winge, a talented Norwegian painter who lives a free and independent life in Rome. Betraying her own ideals, she has an affair, resulting in a child out of wedlock, and decides to raise the child on her own. Undset gives a gripping portrayal of a woman struggling towards fulfillment and independence, who at the same time wrestles with mental problems. It is written with unflinching honesty, which makes her story as compelling today as it was nearly a century ago.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Undset is an Astute Observer of Human Nature
- By Amazon Customer on 08-05-17
By: Sigrid Undset
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The Wings of the Dove
- By: Henry James
- Narrated by: Juliet Stevenson
- Length: 22 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 141
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 125
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 125
Milly Theale is a young, beautiful, and fabulously wealthy American. When she arrives in London and meets the equally beautiful but impoverished Kate Croy, they form an intimate friendship. But nothing is as it seems: materialism, romance, self-delusion, and ultimately fatal illness insidiously contaminate the glamorous social whirl.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Not an easy read but SO worth it!
- By Julie Gray on 10-31-17
By: Henry James
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Cold Hand in Mine
- By: Robert Aickman
- Narrated by: Reece Shearsmith
- Length: 8 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 85
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 74
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 75
Cold Hand in Mine stands as one of Aickman's best collections and contains eight stories that show off his powers as a 'strange story' writer to the full. The listener is introduced to a variety of characters, from a man who spends the night in a Hospice to a German aristocrat and a woman who sees an image of her own soul. There is also a nod to the conventional vampire story ("Pages from a Young Girl's Journal") but all the stories remain unconventional and inconclusive, which perhaps makes them all the more startling and intriguing.
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5 out of 5 stars
-
Aickman is unique
- By Stark on 08-19-23
By: Robert Aickman
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The Complete Stories
- By: Clarice Lispector, Katrina Dodson, Benjamin Moser
- Narrated by: full cast
- Length: 22 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 29
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 23
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 23
Here, gathered in one volume, are the stories that made Clarice a Brazilian legend. Originally a cloth edition of 86 stories, now we have 89 in all, covering her whole amazing career, from her teenage years to her deathbed. In these pages, we meet teenagers becoming aware of their sexual and artistic powers, humdrum housewives whose lives are shattered by unexpected epiphanies, old people who don't know what to do with themselves - and in their stories, Clarice takes us through their lives - and hers - and ours.
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5 out of 5 stars
-
Wonderful Collection
- By XX on 04-25-20
By: Clarice Lispector, and others
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Casting off a northern winter and an orderly life, a family decides to sell everything and go to Italy to search for art and its meanings, for freedom from routine, for a different path into the future. The award-winning writer Rachel Cusk describes a three-month journey around the Italy of Raphael and rented villas, of the Piero della Francesca Trail and the tourist furnace of Amalfi, of soccer and the simple glories of pasta and gelato.
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In the winter of 2009, Rachel Cusk’s marriage of 10 years came to an end. Candid and revelatory, Aftermath chronicles the perilous journey as the author redefines herself and creates a new version of family life for her daughters. She discovers previously unknown strengths and freedoms, but also finds herself suddenly vulnerable to outsiders, unwelcome advice, social displacement, and the absence of a clear authority. The pressure to reconstruct a “normal” life for her daughters competes with the sense that nothing feels normal at all.
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Midway through his life, the artist G begins to paint upside down. Eventually, he paints his wife upside down. He also makes her ugly. The paintings are a great success. In Paris, a woman is attacked by a stranger in the street. Her attacker flees, but not before turning around to contemplate her victim, like an artist stepping back from a canvas. At the age of twenty-two, the painter G leaves home for a new life in another country, far from the disapproval of her parents. Her paintings attract the disapproval of the man she later marries.
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Arlington Park
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Overall3.5 out of 5 stars 5
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 5
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Story3.5 out of 5 stars 5
Set over the course of one rainy day in an ordinary English suburb, Arlington Park is a viciously funny portrait of a group of young mothers, each bound to their families, each straining for some kind of independence: Juliet, enraged at the victory of men over women in family life; Amanda, warding off thoughts of death with obsessive housework; Solly, about to give birth to her fourth child; Maisie, struggling to accept provincial life; and Christine, the optimist and host of a dinner party where the neighbors come together.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Coventry
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 91
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 73
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 71
Coventry encompasses memoir, cultural criticism, and writing about literature, with pieces on family life, gender, and politics, and on D. H. Lawrence, Françoise Sagan, and Kazuo Ishiguro. Named for an essay Cusk published in Granta (“Every so often, for offences actual or hypothetical, my mother and father stop speaking to me. There’s a funny phrase for this phenomenon in England: it’s called being sent to Coventry”), this collection is pure Cusk and essential listening for our age: fearless, unrepentantly erudite, and dazzling to behold.
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5 out of 5 stars
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This review is biased
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Assembly
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 203
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The narrator of Assembly is a Black British woman. She is preparing to attend a lavish garden party at her boyfriend’s family estate, set deep in the English countryside. At the same time, she is considering the carefully assembled pieces of herself. As the minutes tick down and the future beckons, she can’t escape the question: Is it time to take it all apart?
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1 out of 5 stars
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HATED IT
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4 out of 5 stars
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 73
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Jenny Offill’s heroine, referred to in these pages as simply “the wife”, once exchanged love letters with her husband postmarked Dept. of Speculation, their code name for all the uncertainty that inheres in life and in the strangely fluid confines of a long relationship. As they confront an array of common catastrophes - a colicky baby, a faltering marriage, stalled ambitions - the wife analyzes her predicament, invoking everything from Keats and Kafka to the thought experiments of the Stoics to the lessons of doomed Russian cosmonauts.
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Thomas Bradshaw and Tonie Swann are experiencing the classic symptoms of marriage in its middle years: comfortable house, happy enough daughter, and an eerie sense that life might be happening elsewhere. Then Tonie accepts a big promotion at work and Thomas agrees to become a stay-at-home dad. While Thomas is suddenly faced with the daily silence of an empty house, Tonie finds herself alive to previously unimagined possibilities. And at the head of the family, the aging Bradshaw parents continue their marital dynamic of bickering and petty undermining.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Brilliant but tedious
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The Country Life
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When Stella leaves London for a small village in Sussex, she hopes that the country life will be conducive to her journey toward self-discovery. She'll have no more insipid lover, dead end job, or controlling parents to endure. But, as an au pair for a dispiriting family, she's stalked by bad-tempered people, misfortune from weather and wildlife, and unwelcome suitors. Spunky and resourceful, she manages to keep a stiff upper lip, even when her darkest secret manages to catch up with her.
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5 out of 5 stars
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I loved this book!
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The Days of Abandonment
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An IndiBound best seller, The Days of Abandonment shocked and captivated its Italian public when first published. It is the gripping story of a woman's descent into devastating emptiness after being abandoned by her husband, with two young children to care for. When she finds herself literally trapped within the four walls of their high-rise apartment, she is forced to confront her ghosts, the potential loss of her own identity, and the possibility that life may never return to normal.
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4 out of 5 stars
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D.I.V.O.R.C.E.
- By Margaret M. Cranston on 01-18-16
By: Elena Ferrante
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The Lying Life of Adults
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 993
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 837
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Story4 out of 5 stars 839
Giovanna’s pretty face is changing, turning ugly, at least so her father thinks. Giovanna, he says, is looking more like her Aunt Vittoria every day. But can it be true? Is she really changing? Will she turn out like her despised Aunt Vittoria, a woman she hardly knows but whom her mother and father have spent their whole lives avoiding and deriding? There must be a mirror somewhere in which she can see herself as she truly is.
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2 out of 5 stars
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Disappointed
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By: Elena Ferrante, and others
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Elena Knows
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 11
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 11
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Story4 out of 5 stars 11
After Rita is found dead in a church she used to attend, the official investigation into the incident is quickly closed. Her sickly mother is the only person still determined to find the culprit. Chronicling a difficult journey across the suburbs of the city, an old debt and a revealing conversation, Elena Knows unravels the secrets of its characters and the hidden facets of authoritarianism and hypocrisy in our society.
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5 out of 5 stars
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I’m not crying your crying
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The Years
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 194
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 172
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 173
The Years is a personal narrative of the period of 1941 to 2006 told through the lens of memory, impressions past and present - even projections into the future - photos, books, songs, radio, television, and decades of advertising and headlines, contrasted with intimate conflicts and written notes from six decades of diaries. Local dialect, words of the time, slogans, brands, and names for ever-proliferating objects are given a voice here. The voice we recognize as the author's continually dissolves and re-emerges.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Mixed Feelings
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By: Annie Ernaux
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Afterlives
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 248
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 221
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Story4 out of 5 stars 220
When he was just a boy, Ilyas was stolen from his parents on the coast of East Africa by German colonial troops. After years away, fighting against his own people, he returns home to find his parents gone and his sister, Afiya, abandoned into de facto slavery. Hamza, too, returns home from the war, scarred in body and soul and with nothing but the clothes on his back—until he meets the beautiful, undaunted Afiya.
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5 out of 5 stars
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A Compelling book in every way
- By Edward Hower on 11-03-22
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In Memoriam
- A Novel
- By: Alice Winn
- Narrated by: Christian Coulson
- Length: 12 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 157
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 132
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Story5 out of 5 stars 131
It’s 1914, and World War I is ceaselessly churning through thousands of young men on both sides of the fight. The violence of the front feels far away to Henry Gaunt, Sidney Ellwood and the rest of their classmates, safely ensconced in their idyllic boarding school in the English countryside. News of the heroic deaths of their friends only makes the war more exciting.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Amazing
- By Henry on 03-21-23
By: Alice Winn
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Leaving the Atocha Station
- By: Ben Lerner
- Narrated by: Ben Lerner
- Length: 5 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 265
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 230
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Story4 out of 5 stars 228
Adam Gordon is a brilliant, if highly unreliable, young American poet on a prestigious fellowship in Madrid, struggling to establish his sense of self and his relationship to art. Instead of following the dictates of his fellowship, Adam's 'research' becomes a meditation on the possibility of the genuine in the arts and beyond: are his relationships with the people he meets in Spain as fraudulent as he fears his poems are? Is poetry an essential art form, or merely a screen for the reader's projections?
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5 out of 5 stars
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Insightful, beautiful
- By Rochelle on 12-09-14
By: Ben Lerner
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Almond
- A Novel
- By: Won-pyung Sohn
- Narrated by: Greg Chun
- Length: 4 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 428
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 365
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 363
Yunjae was born with a brain condition called alexithymia that makes it hard for him to feel emotions like fear or anger. He does not have friends - the two almond-shaped neurons located deep in his brain have seen to that - but his devoted mother and grandmother aren’t fazed by his condition. Their little home above his mother’s used bookstore is decorated with colorful Post-it notes that remind him when to smile, when to say "thank you", and when to laugh. Yunjae grows up content, even happy, with his small family in this quiet, peaceful space.
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4 out of 5 stars
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So many quotes to choose from...
- By Lori G. on 01-31-22
By: Won-pyung Sohn
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Animal
- A Novel
- By: Lisa Taddeo
- Narrated by: Emma Roberts
- Length: 10 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 660
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 592
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Story4 out of 5 stars 589
Joan has spent a lifetime enduring the cruelties of men. But when one of them commits a shocking act of violence in front of her, she flees New York City in search of Alice, the only person alive who can help her make sense of her past. In the sweltering hills above Los Angeles, Joan unravels the horrific event she witnessed as a child - that has haunted her every waking moment - while forging the power to finally strike back.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Should come with a lot of trigger warnings
- By Harry on 07-13-21
By: Lisa Taddeo
What listeners say about Second Place
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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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story3 out of 5 stars
- Kate Juliff
- 08-08-21
Beautifully executed. Impressionism in words, philosophy in motion
I enjoyed “Second Place” though the only characters that rang true were M, the writer and L the artist. The others were shallow.
The philosophizing was annoying at times, insightful occasionally. I recommend it if only for the exquisite writing. Her picture of paras is Impressionism in English words,
It slows down a bit about 3/4 through but is worth preserving to the end. Don’t think it’ll win the Booker, but for a novel written in these troubled times of Brexit, climate crisis and Covid, it hits the mark though these tragedies are not directly alluded to..
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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
- Xmimix
- 01-03-22
Her best book to date…
If you love Rachel Cusk, as I do, you will rejoice in this book of hers. An intriguing and thoughtful story and the narration is outstanding.
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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
- Amazon Customer
- 01-29-22
Incredible!
Best audiobook I’ve ever listened to. The performance is electrifying and the prose, nourishment for the soul. Must listen!
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Overall3 out of 5 stars
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Performance1 out of 5 stars
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Story3 out of 5 stars
- TCBailey
- 03-28-22
Horrible narrator, boring story
The narrator when voicing other characters was like nails on a chalk board. The story was whiny and self indulgent.
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2 people found this helpful
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance1 out of 5 stars
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Story3 out of 5 stars
- JKG
- 02-20-22
The problem with Audible
Truly, I expected more from Kate Fleetwood and Audible. This is an annoying performance that brings into view the difficulties of narrating novels. The male voices are all mannered and unpleasant, as if life or novels gave out those cues. The unpleasant L speaks with a drawl, unless he’s using the more menacing croak of the villain in a film made for children. Little is left to the listener’s imagination, when the book itself wants to engage just that faculty.
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3 people found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Paul
- 10-13-21
Rachel Cusk is so brilliant!
Oh my God. Thank you Audible algorithm for recommending this to me. But then, it should be obvious that I hang on every word she writes.
Before I downloaded I read a couple of reviews that crabbed about the narration. I don’t see what their problem was.
Interestingly the story takes place during the pandemic, but that formed only the most distant backdrop, alluded to by snippets like, "...now that travel had become less of a problem..."
Fans will not be disappointed: there is the obligatory cringy scene where a man, with the greatest awkwardness, tries to force himself on the POV character.
I never tire of Rachel Cusk's startlingly original turns of phrase coupled with her penetrating wisdom and disarming vulnerability. If you are anything like the fanboy I am don't pass this up.
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Overall3 out of 5 stars
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Performance1 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- Jonathan
- 08-30-21
Great book, acting fail.
This is an awful performance. I have never had such a visceral reaction to a reader. The voices she adopts for the characters are so exaggerated, especially for the men. it's almost funny, but mostly just annoying. Rachel Cusk deserves better!
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Overall3 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story2 out of 5 stars
- Naveen S.
- 08-30-21
Kind of liked it?
A bit rambling and boring but the author uses beautiful and precise language which I liked. There is no real plot but I guess that would be a feature and not a bug from this author’s perspective. Nice unromantic view of what might be considered an “impressive” man particularly in contrast to the other characters.
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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
- Oleksandra
- 02-10-22
Amazing book
I think this is one of author’s greatest books ever. It was a pure pleasure…
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Overall3 out of 5 stars
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Performance1 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- barbara
- 08-31-22
The Narrator is distractingly bad
It’s interesting to read a book yourself (words on the page) and another to be read to. I’ve read (and listened to) several of Rachel Cusk books - I can hear Cusk’s voice in my head. Listening to this, in my opinion a ridiculously awful narrator is completely ruining it for me. She is getting in the way of the book with her unconvincing voices! yikes
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