-
The Octopus: A Story of California
- The Epic of the Wheat Series, Book 1
- Narrated by: John Lescault
- Length: 21 hrs and 32 mins
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The Octopus: A Story of California
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Publisher's summary
Like the tentacles of an octopus, the railroad in California reached out across the state, grasping everything of value in the state. Based on the bloody Mussel Slough Tragedy - a conflict between wheat farmers and the Southern Pacific Railroad - The Octopus is a stunning novel chronicling the twilight of the frontier West. A depiction of the tensions between the railroad, the ranchers, and the ranchers’ League. The book emphasizes the control of “forces” - such as the power of railroad monopolies - over individuals. No one was truly innocent, as the farmers employed the same if not similar tactics as the monopolistic railroad companies, such as subversion, coercion, and violence.
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-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 99
Hailed as one of the Great American Novels, The Great Gatsby delves into the dark corners of the Jazz Age to tell a tragic tale of obsession, love, and the gritty underbelly of the American dream. Through the eyes of unassuming narrator Nick Carraway, the story follows the enigmatic Jay Gatsby as he chases the object of his hopeless desire, the beautiful Daisy Buchanan.
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5 out of 5 stars
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The great American novel!
- By Karen Creeden on 11-12-22
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Far from the Madding Crowd
- By: Thomas Hardy
- Narrated by: David McCallion
- Length: 13 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 35
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 31
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 30
Far from the Madding Crowd, which first appeared in Cornhill Magazine in monthly installments back in the late 19th century, features the love life of the young Bathsheba Everdene who is as poor as she is beautiful. Fortunately, Bathsheba's uncle leaves her his farm, which she goes to manage in the small town of Weatherbury. Before she leaves, however, she has an interesting encounter with a young farmer, Gabriel Oak, for whom she does a tremendous favor ,and he becomes indebted to her....
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5 out of 5 stars
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Loved this delightful listening experience !!!
- By Robin Wardle on 07-15-16
By: Thomas Hardy
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Tess of the D'urbervilles
- By: Thomas Hardy
- Narrated by: Jennifer Dixon
- Length: 17 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 65
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 60
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 58
Tess of the d'Urbervilles is the 19th century novel lately thought to be one of the inspirations of E .L.James' Fifty Shades of Grey. It depicts the life of an impressionable, naive, somewhat educated young woman who yearns to be free to live her own life, but finds herself constricted by the bonds of the sexual, religious and socially hypocritical customs that have surrounded her from birth.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Jenny Dixon
- By Amazon Customer on 08-09-15
By: Thomas Hardy
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Madame Bovary
- By: Gustave Flaubert
- Narrated by: Elaine Wise
- Length: 11 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 77
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 69
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 69
Though he embodies neither wealth nor a lavish persona, Charles Bovary - a somewhat established doctor - takes a chance in marrying the young, vibrant, and ambitious farm girl Emma Rouault. At first, Emma is delighted to be married and away from her father's farm, but her thirst for the rich and ornate lifestyle that she witnesses other people living soon drives her away from her husband and into the arms of various suitors.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Madame Bovary doesn't disappoint
- By Arlene Olsen on 12-11-16
By: Gustave Flaubert
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Pale Horse, Pale Rider
- Three Short Novels
- By: Katherine Anne Porter
- Narrated by: Chelsea Stephens
- Length: 6 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 62
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 55
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Story4 out of 5 stars 54
The classic 1939 collection of three novellas by the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award-winning author and journalist, including the famous title story set during the influenza epidemic of 1918.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Some of the most brilliant prose ever written
- By Anonymous User on 03-21-23
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H.G. Wells Fiction Collection
- The Invisible Man, The Time Machine and The War of the Worlds
- By: H. G. Wells
- Narrated by: Roberto Scarlato, Charles King - Introduction
- Length: 16 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 57
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 47
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 47
In what many refer to as one of the first and greatest science fiction thrillers, a mysterious stranger wanders into an inn, wrapped head-to-toe in bandages. What lies beneath the bandages is something even more mysterious. As Wells tackles issues of identity, deception, and the deterioration of the human mind, listeners will be drawn into the story of the mysterious man, whose own mistakes end up whisking him into a whirlwind of deceit, terror, and even murder. In the end, the question will be asked: when your sense of self and identity vanish, who will you become?
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5 out of 5 stars
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Super organized, captivating narrator
- By Jackie Harwood on 04-28-20
By: H. G. Wells
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Winesburg, Ohio
- By: Sherwood Anderson
- Narrated by: George Guidall
- Length: 8 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 191
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 161
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Story4 out of 5 stars 160
Winesburg, Ohio is a little-known masterpiece that forever changed the course of American storytelling. At the center of this collection of stories stands George Willard, an earnest young reporter for the Winesburg Eagle who sets out to gather the town’s daily news. He ends up discovering the town’s deepest secrets as one by one, the townsfolk confide their hopes, dreams, and fears to the reporter. In their recollections of first loves and last rites, of sprawling farms and winding country roads, the town rises vividly - and poignantly - to life.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Isolation, Loneliness, Love & Midwest Grotesque
- By Darwin8u on 06-27-13
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The Recognitions
- By: William Gaddis
- Narrated by: Nick Sullivan
- Length: 47 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 219
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 175
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Story4 out of 5 stars 176
Wyatt Gwyon's desire to forge is not driven by larceny but from love. Exactingly faithful to the spirit and letter of the Flemish masters, he produces uncannily accurate "originals" - pictures the painters themselves might have envied. In an age of counterfeit emotion and taste, the real and fake have become indistinguishable; yet Gwyon's forgeries reflect a truth that others cannot touch - cannot even recognize.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Breathtaking, Dizzying, Stimulating, Funny
- By andrew on 11-17-10
By: William Gaddis
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The Barrakee Mystery
- An Inspector Napoleon Bonaparte Mystery, Book 1
- By: Arthur W. Upfield
- Narrated by: Peter Hosking
- Length: 8 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 140
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 131
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 129
Why was the redoubtable King Henry, an aborigine from Western Australia, killed during a thunderstorm in New South Wales? What was the feud that led to murder after nineteen long years had passed? And who was the woman who saw the murder and kept silent? This first story of Inspector Napoleon Bonaparte, the half-aborigine detective, takes him to a sheep station in the Darling River bush country where he encounters those problems he understands so well... mixed blood and divided loyalties.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Story from another time....
- By A. Raymond on 06-15-15
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Main Street (Annotated): 100th Anniversary Edition
- By: Sinclair Lewis
- Narrated by: Kitty Hendrix
- Length: 19 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 69
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 61
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 61
A biting satire that countered the American myth of wholesome small-town life with a depiction of narrow-minded provincialism, it was to some degree based on Lewis's own experience of growing on Sauk Centre, Minnesota. Set in mid-1910s, it depicts the struggles of Carol Kennicott, a city girl, as she tries to adapt to small town life, having left her librarian job and St. Paul, Minnesota to marry Dr. Will Kennicott of Gopher Prairie. Dismayed by the town’s drabness and the conforming, petty inhabitants, Carol optimistically sets out to improve the town.
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5 out of 5 stars
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What Are Your Assumptions About Yourself & Others
- By Benny Fife on 02-06-20
By: Sinclair Lewis
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Freckles
- By: Gene Stratton-Porter
- Narrated by: Susan Iannucci, David Shears, Sarah Bacaller, and others
- Length: 8 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 7
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 6
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 6
Freckles is the only name he has ever known. His right hand is missing at the wrist, and he is haunted by not knowing how it happened. Raised since infancy in a Chicago orphanage, he speaks with a slight Irish accent and sings with a beautiful voice. Now, exhausted after many days of walking, he applies for a job with the Grand Rapids Lumber Company, guarding timber in the Limberlost Swamp from timber thieves. His Swamp Angel declares her love for him and promises that she will find his parents and prove that Freckles comes from "a race of men that have been gentlemen for ages."
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4 out of 5 stars
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Freckles
- By Bill Collier on 10-17-23
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Collected Stories of William Faulkner
- By: William Faulkner
- Narrated by: Paul Boehmer, Susan Denaker, Scott Brick, and others
- Length: 31 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 283
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 209
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Story4 out of 5 stars 211
This magisterial collection of short works by Nobel Prize-winning author William Faulkner reminds listeners of his ability to compress his epic vision into narratives as hard and wounding as bullets. Among the 42 selections in this audiobook are such classics as "A Bear Hunt", "A Rose for Emily", "Two Soldiers", and "The Brooch".
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4 out of 5 stars
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Audiobook Table of Contents (by Chapter)
- By Anonymous User on 09-27-20
By: William Faulkner
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The Finding of Jasper Holt
- By: Grace Livingston Hill
- Narrated by: Anne Hancock
- Length: 6 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 39
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 36
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Story5 out of 5 stars 36
Jean Grayson is traveling alone to visit her sister out west when a terrible accident occurs and she is saved from certain death by a stranger. Together they make their perilous way through the wilderness. His name is Jasper Holt, and their care for each other blossoms on their journey. But Holt warns Jean that when they reach the safety of their destination, she'll find that her relatives and the townsfolk have nothing good to say about him.
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5 out of 5 stars
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this was one of my favorites!
- By Tc on 01-08-21
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Light in August
- By: William Faulkner
- Narrated by: Will Patton
- Length: 15 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 3,061
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 2,348
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Story4 out of 5 stars 2,343
An Oprah's Book Club Selection regarded as one of Faulkner's greatest and most accessible novels, Light in August is a timeless and riveting story of determination, tragedy, and hope. In Faulkner's iconic Yoknapatawpha County, race, sex, and religion collide around three memorable characters searching desperately for human connection and their own identities.
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5 out of 5 stars
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so large, so powerful, so conflicted
- By Darwin8u on 09-17-17
By: William Faulkner
What listeners say about The Octopus: A Story of California
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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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
- BOA
- 04-09-20
Awesome!
An excellent story, as relevant today as when first published in 1901. The narrator, John Lescault, is superb! Highly recommended.
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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
- Jeremy H Doxsee
- 03-21-23
Beautifully written but not for the faint of heart
Beautifully written & narrated, it is however one of bleakest novels imaginable. Depravity leads to misfortune, which becomes tragedy, which leads to irredeemable hopelessness. Like the octopus Mr. Norris will not be content until he devours our heart & souls
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