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This Is the Story of a Happy Marriage
- Narrated by: Ann Patchett
- Length: 11 hrs and 36 mins
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Publisher's summary
Blending literature and memoir, Ann Patchett, author of State of Wonder and Bel Canto examines her deepest commitments: to writing, family, friends, dogs, books, and her husband in This Is the Story of a Happy Marriage. Together, these essays, previously published in The Atlantic, Harper, Vogue, and The Washington Post, form a resonant portrait of a life lived with loyalty and with love.
This Is the Story of a Happy Marriage takes us into the very real world of Ann Patchett's life. Stretching from her childhood to the present day, from a disastrous early marriage to a later happy one, it covers a multitude of topics, including relationships with family and friends, and charts the hard work and joy of writing, and the unexpected thrill of opening a bookstore.
As she shares stories of the people, places, ideals, and art to which she has remained indelibly committed, Ann Patchett brings into focus the large experiences and small moments that have shaped her as a daughter, wife, and writer.
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Critic reviews
"Readable and candid, Patchett’s collection is a joyful celebration of life, love and the written word." (Kirkus Reviews)
"Reading Patchett is like spending time with a deeply perceptive longtime pal, or a new friend that one instantly connects with." (USA Today)
"[A] sparkling collection." (The New Yorker)
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Writer, poet, and teacher Natalie Goldberg shows you how to unleash your "wild mind" - the true source of your creative power. In this crisp mix of memoir, teaching guide, nonfiction and poetry, Goldberg strips creativity to the essential mind that is "raw, full of energy, alive, and hungry." Natalie is compassionate, practical, and humorous. "Even if it's just a leg hanging out the window, she says, "write it down." Highlights include: provocative "try this" exercises to compel you into action, advice on how to find time to write, how to discover your personal style, how to make sentences come alive, and how to overcome procrastination and writer's block. She'll also explore the larger vision of the writer's task: knowing when to take risks as a writer and a person, learning self-acceptance in life and art.
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Get to know Natalie Goldberg
- By Sven Severin on 04-21-15
By: Natalie Goldberg
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To See the Moon Again
- By: Jamie Langston Turner
- Narrated by: Eva Kaminsky
- Length: 13 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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The first step to letting go of the past is forgiving it …Every day of her life Julia Rich lives with the memory of a horrible accident she caused long ago. In the years since, she has tried to hide her guilt in the quiet routine of teaching at a small South Carolina college, avoiding close relationships with family and would-be friends. But one day a phone call from Carmen, a niece she has never met, disrupts her carefully controlled world.
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Beautiful Story of Forgiveness and Selfless Love
- By sharon on 09-20-14
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Bettyville
- By: George Hodgman
- Narrated by: Jeff Woodman
- Length: 10 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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When George Hodgman leaves Manhattan for his hometown of Paris, Missouri, he finds himself - an unlikely caretaker and near-lethal cook - in a head-on collision with his aging mother, Betty, a woman of wit and will. Will George lure her into assisted living? When hell freezes over. He can't bring himself to force her from the home both treasure - the place where his father's voice lingers, the scene of shared jokes, skirmishes, and, behind the dusty antiques, a rarely acknowledged conflict...
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Title Should Be Georgeville-It's All About George
- By Sara on 10-08-15
By: George Hodgman
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Laughing Without an Accent
- Adventures of an Iranian American, at Home and Abroad
- By: Firoozeh Dumas
- Narrated by: Firoozeh Dumas
- Length: 5 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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In the best-selling memoir Funny in Farsi, Firoozeh Dumas recounted her adventures growing up Iranian American in Southern California. Now she again mines her rich Persian heritage in Laughing Without an Accent, sharing stories both tender and humorous on being a citizen of the world, on her well-meaning family, and on amusing cultural conundrums, all told with insights into the universality of the human condition. (Hint: It may have to do with brushing and flossing daily.)
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Sigh
- By Sara on 01-29-14
By: Firoozeh Dumas
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There's Nothing in This Book That I Meant to Say
- By: Paula Poundstone
- Narrated by: Paula Poundstone
- Length: 5 hrs and 59 mins
- Abridged
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What do the lives of Lincoln, Helen Keller, Joan of Arc, and other historical figures have in common with Paula Poundstone? In the hands of this wryly observant and self-deprecating comedian, the answer is outrageously funny and unexpectedly touching. Poundstone compares her crazy life to theirs, as she holds forth on her children, her career, and the time in her life when it appeared she would lose them both.
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More!
- By Evelyn on 02-11-07
By: Paula Poundstone
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Flesh Wounds
- By: Richard Glover
- Narrated by: Richard Glover
- Length: 7 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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A mother who invented her past, a father who was often absent, a son who wondered if this could really be his family...Richard Glover's favourite dinner-party game is called 'Who's Got the Weirdest Parents?' It's a game he always thinks he'll win. There was his mother, a deluded snob who made up large swathes of her past and who ran away with Richard's English teacher, a Tolkien devotee, nudist and stuffed toy collector.
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Such a Meaningful Reflection
- By Awarenessing on 11-28-15
By: Richard Glover
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Chicken Soup for the Soul - Find Your Happiness
- 101 Inspirational Stories about Finding Your Purpose, Passion, and Joy
- By: Jack Canfield, Mark Victor Hansen
- Narrated by: Cynthia Barrett
- Length: 11 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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What makes you happy? Others share how they found their passion, purpose, and joy in life in these 101 personal and exciting stories that are sure to inspire and encourage listeners to find their own happiness. Chicken Soup for the Soul: Find Your Happiness will encourage listeners to pursue their dreams, find their passion and seek joy in their life with its 101 personal and inspiring stories. This book continues Chicken Soup for the Soul’s focus on inspiration and hope, reminding us that we all can find our own happiness.
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I got even more depressed
- By Tom on 09-08-14
By: Jack Canfield, and others
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My Life with Bob
- Flawed Heroine Keeps Book of Books, Plot Ensues
- By: Pamela Paul
- Narrated by: Eileen Stevens, Pamela Paul
- Length: 6 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
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Pamela Paul has kept a single book by her side for 28 years - carried throughout high school and college, hauled from Paris to London to Thailand, from job to job, safely packed away and then carefully removed from apartment to house to its current perch on a shelf over her desk - reliable if frayed, anonymous-looking yet deeply personal. This book has a name: Bob. Bob is Paul's Book of Books, a journal that records every book she's ever read.
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An uncanny mirror and a celebration of book love
- By Cherilyn Parsons on 07-28-19
By: Pamela Paul
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Because I Come from a Crazy Family
- The Making of a Psychiatrist
- By: Edward M. Hallowell
- Narrated by: Paul Boehmer
- Length: 13 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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When Edward M. Hallowell was 11, a voice out of nowhere told him he should become a psychiatrist. A mental health professional of the time would have called this psychosis. But young Edward (Ned) took it in stride, despite not quite knowing what "psychiatrist" meant. With a psychotic father, an alcoholic mother, an abusive stepfather, and two so-called learning disabilities of his own, Ned was accustomed to unpredictable behaviour from those around him and to a mind he felt he couldn't always control.
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Love and connection permeates through this book!
- By Steve Steinmetz on 06-29-18
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An Uncomplicated Life
- A Father's Memoir of His Exceptional Daughter
- By: Paul Daugherty
- Narrated by: Robert McCollum
- Length: 9 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
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A father’s exhilarating and funny love letter to his daughter with Down syndrome whose vibrant and infectious approach to life has something to teach all of us about how we can better live our own. Jillian Daugherty was born with Down syndrome. On the day Paul and Kerry, her parents, brought her home from the hospital they were flooded with worry and uncertainty, but also overwhelming love, which they channeled to “the job of building the better Jillian”. While their daughter had special needs, they refused to allow her to grow up needy - “expect, don’t accept” became their mantra.
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A Story on the Beauties of DS
- By Matthew on 04-16-23
By: Paul Daugherty
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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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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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Probably only for die hard Vonnegut fans
- By Watery M on 12-22-12
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It's a winter evening in Boston and the temperature has drastically dropped as a blizzard approaches the city. On this fateful night, Bernard Doyle plans to meet his two adopted sons, Tip the older, and more serious and Teddy, the affectionate dreamer, at a Harvard auditorium to hear a speech given by Jesse Jackson. Doyle, an Irish Catholic and former Boston mayor, has done his best to keep his two sons interested in politics, from the day he and his now deceased wife became their parents, through their childhoods, and now in their lives as college students.
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Don't listen to the interview at the end.
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The author of Bel Canto, winner of the PEN/Faulkner Award, the Orange Prize, and long-running New York Times best seller, turns to nonfiction in a moving chronicle of her decades-long friendship with the critically acclaimed and recently deceased author, Lucy Grealy.
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“Any story that starts will also end.” As a writer, Ann Patchett knows what the outcome of her fiction will be. Life, however, often takes turns we do not see coming. Patchett ponders this truth in these wise essays that afford a fresh and intimate look into her mind and heart.
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Heartfelt Essays, Beautifully Performed
- By Brent Holcomb on 11-23-21
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The Patron Saint of Liars
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St. Elizabeth's is a lovely old place in a small town in Kentucky that used to be the beautiful Hotel Louisa. In the 1960s, it is a home for unwed mothers run by nuns. Life at St. Elizabeth's is not unpleasant, but it is temporary. All the pregnant women who come there will go home within the year. Except for Rose, a beautiful, mysterious woman, who is neither unwed nor alone. She is simply pregnant and doesn't want her husband or her mother to know. She plans to give her baby up because she knows she cannot be the mother the baby needs.
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Incomplete
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Research scientist Dr. Marina Singh is sent to Brazil to track down her former mentor, Dr. Annick Swenson, who seems to have disappeared in the Amazon while working on an extremely valuable new drug. The last person who was sent to find her died before he could complete his mission. Plagued by trepidation, Marina embarks on an odyssey into the insect-infested jungle in hopes of finding answers to the questions about her friend's death, her company's future, and her own past.
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Do yourself a favor and listen to this book!
- By F. B. H. In TN on 06-10-11
By: Ann Patchett
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The Magician's Assistant
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When a gay Los Angeles magician named Parsifal dies suddenly, he leaves behind his heartbroken assistant, Sabine, and a secret past that leads her to Nebraska and a father she never knew he had.
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Patchett Has It
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It's a winter evening in Boston and the temperature has drastically dropped as a blizzard approaches the city. On this fateful night, Bernard Doyle plans to meet his two adopted sons, Tip the older, and more serious and Teddy, the affectionate dreamer, at a Harvard auditorium to hear a speech given by Jesse Jackson. Doyle, an Irish Catholic and former Boston mayor, has done his best to keep his two sons interested in politics, from the day he and his now deceased wife became their parents, through their childhoods, and now in their lives as college students.
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Don't listen to the interview at the end.
- By S. Elder on 12-16-07
By: Ann Patchett
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Truth & Beauty
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The author of Bel Canto, winner of the PEN/Faulkner Award, the Orange Prize, and long-running New York Times best seller, turns to nonfiction in a moving chronicle of her decades-long friendship with the critically acclaimed and recently deceased author, Lucy Grealy.
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A grim tale of unrecovered co-dependency
- By Charles on 04-05-05
By: Ann Patchett
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These Precious Days
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- Length: 11 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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“Any story that starts will also end.” As a writer, Ann Patchett knows what the outcome of her fiction will be. Life, however, often takes turns we do not see coming. Patchett ponders this truth in these wise essays that afford a fresh and intimate look into her mind and heart.
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Heartfelt Essays, Beautifully Performed
- By Brent Holcomb on 11-23-21
By: Ann Patchett
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The Patron Saint of Liars
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St. Elizabeth's is a lovely old place in a small town in Kentucky that used to be the beautiful Hotel Louisa. In the 1960s, it is a home for unwed mothers run by nuns. Life at St. Elizabeth's is not unpleasant, but it is temporary. All the pregnant women who come there will go home within the year. Except for Rose, a beautiful, mysterious woman, who is neither unwed nor alone. She is simply pregnant and doesn't want her husband or her mother to know. She plans to give her baby up because she knows she cannot be the mother the baby needs.
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Incomplete
- By Deborah on 04-24-08
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State of Wonder
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Research scientist Dr. Marina Singh is sent to Brazil to track down her former mentor, Dr. Annick Swenson, who seems to have disappeared in the Amazon while working on an extremely valuable new drug. The last person who was sent to find her died before he could complete his mission. Plagued by trepidation, Marina embarks on an odyssey into the insect-infested jungle in hopes of finding answers to the questions about her friend's death, her company's future, and her own past.
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Do yourself a favor and listen to this book!
- By F. B. H. In TN on 06-10-11
By: Ann Patchett
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The Magician's Assistant
- By: Ann Patchett
- Narrated by: Karen Ziemba
- Length: 11 hrs and 9 mins
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When a gay Los Angeles magician named Parsifal dies suddenly, he leaves behind his heartbroken assistant, Sabine, and a secret past that leads her to Nebraska and a father she never knew he had.
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Patchett Has It
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By: Ann Patchett
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What Now?
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Based on her lauded commencement address at Sarah Lawrence College, this stirring essay by best-selling author Ann Patchett offers hope and inspiration for anyone at a crossroads, whether graduating, changing careers, or transitioning from one life stage to another. With wit and candor, Patchett tells her own story of attending college, graduating, and struggling with the inevitable question, "What now?"
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A commencement message for life
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Commonwealth
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One Sunday afternoon in Southern California, Bert Cousins shows up at Franny Keating's christening party uninvited. Before evening falls, he has kissed Franny's mother, Beverly - thus setting in motion the dissolution of their marriages and the joining of two families.
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Patchett and Me--In-sympatico
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By: Ann Patchett
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Taft
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John Nickel is a black ex-jazz musician who only wants to be a good father. But when his son is taken away from him, he's left with nothing but the Memphis bar he manages. Then he hires Fay, a young white waitress, who has a volatile brother named Carl in tow. Nickel finds himself consumed with the idea of Taft - Fay and Carl's dead father - and begins to reconstruct the life of a man he never met. But his sympathies for these lost souls soon take him down a twisting path into the lives of strangers.
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Patchett's Novel's all Available on Audio Now
- By Murmansk on 09-26-19
By: Ann Patchett
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Bel Canto
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Ann Patchett’s award winning, New York Times best-selling Bel Canto balances themes of love and crisis as disparate characters learn that music is their only common language. As in Pratchett’s other novels, including Truth & Beauty and The Magician’s Assistant, the author’s lyrical prose and lucid imagination make Bel Canto a captivating story of strength and frailty, love and imprisonment, and an inspiring tale of transcendent romance.
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Opera Has Charms to Soothe the Savage Guerillas
- By Mel on 03-01-13
By: Ann Patchett
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You Think It, I'll Say It
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- By: Curtis Sittenfeld
- Narrated by: Emily Rankin, Mark Deakins
- Length: 7 hrs and 5 mins
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Throughout the 10 stories in You Think It, I'll Say It, Sittenfeld upends assumptions about class, relationships, and gender roles in a nation that feels both adrift and viscerally divided. With moving insight and uncanny precision, Curtis Sittenfeld pinpoints the questionable decisions, missed connections, and sometimes extraordinary coincidences that make up a life. Indeed, she writes what we're all thinking - if only we could express it with the wit of a master satirist, the storytelling gifts of an old-fashioned raconteur, and the vision of an American original.
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Stories of people thinking and acting horribly towards each other
- By Ali K on 06-02-18
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Still Lives
- A Novel
- By: Maria Hummel
- Narrated by: Tavia Gilbert
- Length: 9 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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Kim Lord is an avant garde figure, feminist icon, and agent provocateur in the LA art scene. Her groundbreaking new exhibition, Still Lives, is comprised of self-portraits depicting herself as famous murdered women - the Black Dahlia, Chandra Levy, Nicole Brown Simpson, among many others - and the works are as compelling as they are disturbing, implicating a culture that is too accustomed to violence against women.
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Second fail from Reese
- By jestans on 08-12-18
By: Maria Hummel
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The Dutch House
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At the end of the Second World War, Cyril Conroy combines luck and a single canny investment to begin an enormous real estate empire, propelling his family from poverty to enormous wealth. His first order of business is to buy the Dutch House, a lavish estate in the suburbs outside of Philadelphia. Meant as a surprise for his wife, the house sets in motion the undoing of everyone he loves. The story is told by Cyril’s son Danny, as he and his older sister, the brilliantly acerbic and self-assured Maeve, are exiled from the house where they grew up by their stepmother.
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Not my favorite Patchett
- By Regina on 12-07-19
By: Ann Patchett
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Whisper Network
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- By: Chandler Baker
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- Unabridged
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Sloane, Ardie, Grace, and Rosalita have worked at Truviv, Inc., for years. The sudden death of Truviv’s CEO means their boss, Ames, will likely take over the entire company. Each of the women has a different relationship with Ames, who has always been surrounded by whispers about how he treats women. Those whispers have been ignored, swept under the rug, hidden away by those in charge. But the world has changed, and the women are watching this promotion differently.
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I WANTED to like this book...
- By Kimberly on 07-03-19
By: Chandler Baker
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Tom Lake
- A Novel
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In the spring of 2020, Lara’s three daughters return to the family's orchard in Northern Michigan. While picking cherries, they beg their mother to tell them the story of Peter Duke, a famous actor with whom she shared both a stage and a romance years before at a theater company called Tom Lake. As Lara recalls the past, her daughters examine their own lives and relationship with their mother, and are forced to reconsider the world and everything they thought they knew.
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So incredibly boring
- By Rhonda Morrison on 08-05-23
By: Ann Patchett
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Escape Goat
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The Farmer family has a big problem! Every day, their goat escapes, and every day, Mr. Farmer brings him back. So when things start to go awry on the farm, it must be the goat’s fault. Who’s to blame when Mrs. Farmer’s petunias are trampled? Or when all the cupcakes for Archie’s party disappear? And when the whole bucket of paint is spilled? Of course, everyone blames the goat! But is it really his fault?
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Great story
- By michelle on 11-07-20
By: Ann Patchett
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The Jetsetters
- By: Amanda Eyre Ward
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- Length: 8 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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When 70-year-old Charlotte Perkins submits a sexy essay to the "Become a Jetsetter" contest, she dreams of reuniting her estranged children: Lee, an almost-famous actress; Cord, a handsome Manhattan venture capitalist who can't seem to find a bride; and Regan, a harried mother who took it all wrong when Charlotte bought her a Weight Watchers gift certificate for her birthday. Charlotte yearns for the years when her children were young and she was a single mother who meant everything to them. When she wins the cruise, the family packs all their baggage - literal and figurative....
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Calm down
- By Donna on 03-05-20
By: Amanda Eyre Ward
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Conviction
- By: Denise Mina
- Narrated by: Cathleen McCarron
- Length: 9 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
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The day Anna McDonald's quiet, respectable life explodes starts off like all the days before: Packing up the kids for school, making breakfast, listening to yet another true crime podcast. Then her husband comes downstairs with an announcement, and Anna is suddenly, shockingly alone. Reeling, desperate for distraction, Anna returns to the podcast. Other people's problems are much better than one's own - a sunken yacht, a murdered family, a hint of international conspiracy. But this case actually is Anna's problem. She knows one of the victims from an earlier life.
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Not at all what I expected
- By rosemary on 07-10-19
By: Denise Mina
What listeners say about This Is the Story of a Happy Marriage
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Bonny
- 01-07-14
Entertaining, engrossing, and elucidative essays
This is the Story of a Happy Marriage is everything other reviewers have said, and more. It’s a wonderfully-written and varied collection of Ann Patchett’s essays, ranging from musings about how she considered joining the Los Angeles Police Dept. in order to write about it and how she is influenced by her father, a retired LAPD police captain, to her feelings about her dog Rose and Sister Nena, the nun that taught her to read and write, to the eloquent and moving account of caring for her grandmother during her progression into dementia.
I’ve read and enjoyed (with reservations) several of Patchett’s novels. Bel Canto was great but I hated the ending, and I liked State of Wonder, except for some of the more ludicrous plot points. I personally found this collection of essays much more engrossing than any of her novels that I’ve read. She can write about almost anything, revealing thoughts, emotions, and advice without becoming preachy and overbearing.
I was completely unaware of Lucy Grealy, Patchett’s long-term friendship with her, and the controversies arising from their relationship. I’m very tempted to read Patchett’s Truth and Beauty to delve into this further, and may do that after I’ve had some time to digest the essay from Grealy’s sister in The Guardian. I’m hoping that Patchett will further show, as she did in this collection, that there are often quite a few ways of viewing a situation, and one absolute truth does not always exist.
I do have to thank Ann Patchett for leading me to an epiphany. In “Love Sustained”, she writes about the long and painful decline of her grandmother Eva:
“My grandmother had spent her life taking care of other people, cooking their food, cleaning their houses. It was her proof that she was valuable in the world. Now I cleaned my grandmother's apartment, which hurt her every single time. My cleaning was an accusation, no matter how quietly I went about it.”
When I read “It was her proof that she was valuable in the world.”, I gained a much better understanding of my dear mother-in-law. She raised five children with lots of hard work and no time to herself. Now that she has too much time to herself, she is missing that visible proof that she is valuable in the world. I could see her so clearly in that one simple sentence. I’m grateful for this entertaining and elucidative collection of essays that was a pleasure to read, and even more so when read by the author in the audio version.
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60 people found this helpful
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- Marie
- 03-31-14
About a Lot More than Marriage
What did you love best about This Is the Story of a Happy Marriage?
To me, as a writer, this proved to be one of the most valuable books I've ever come across. While Ann Patchett's marriage to her husband plays a significant part in her story, it's actually an account of her lifelong commitment to writing. The detours and missteps she's taken along the way to a career in that field are in many ways analogous to the errors a married couple inevitably makes and her ultimate success as a novelist reminds one of the aging couple who have learned to tolerate either other's idiosyncrasies but aren't so entirely comfortable that they no longer have to work at it. A must read for any writer or would-be writer. In addition, readers who have enjoyed Ann Patchett's novels will find this book provides much insight into the author's personality and the process by which she comes to her fiction.
Who was your favorite character and why?
Ann Patchett is the central character of this book. I liked that she was so revealing about herself.
What does Ann Patchett bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?
I liked the way her voice reveals her character.
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3 people found this helpful
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- AmyEnderle1970
- 05-12-15
Good pearls of wisdom and insight
Enjoyable well-crafted essays that makes me wish Ann lived across the street. Love that she reads them herself; ultimately I like her novels even more.
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- Merilee Grage
- 03-25-21
Observation Awareness
After struggling with writing my whole life, Ann has exemplified beauty a gift of hope that I too can influence others. The stories and characters brought healing and understanding at a much needed time. I
I purchased Truth and Beauty: A Friendship and The Dutch House: A Novel both by Ann. Also purchased, sure to satisfy: Autobiography of a Face by Ann’s dear friend Lucy Greatly. Thank you Ann for your electrifying example of writing and life.
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- Peter M.
- 09-24-21
Revealing, dimensional, touching, and honest
As a new but firm fan of Ann Patchett—both her novels and her nonfiction—I was already expecting to enjoy this. And I was far from disappointed. From entertaining anecdotes and tantalizing details about her private life, to deeply rooted and practical wisdom for writers, artists, and people of all walks of life just trying to make their way through the world, Patchett's essays, collected in this book, are a gold mine. I think what draws me to her is her frank, unabashed way of looking at herself and her place in the world. She is not always likable. She is honest, and owns up to her mistakes and shortcomings, but in such a way that she helps you understand that we all fail sometimes, and our failures do not define our lives. She makes everything, every story and moment of mundane life, seem inspirational and worthy of note. Her reading may not be to everyone's taste, but I found it only enriched the experience—especially to hear her slightly suppressed Tennessean accent peeking through now and then. I will recommend this book again and again to Patchett fans, and anyone needing to hear a few kind, interesting stories.
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- Doggy Bird
- 01-01-14
Great Reading, Great Writer!
This is a great book of essays with very personal themes and much discussion of the author's relationships with family and friends. I had high expectations when this book of essays was recently published and I was not disappointed. The author's narration personalizes the entire book. I felt like she was speaking directly to me. This was further accentuated by the personal nature of the topics, strengthening the rapport between reader and author.
I would imagine these essays would interest even those readers unfamiliar with her novels, but for readers who are already fans these essays are particularly relevant since she discusses her craft and her working habits as well as her shift from the short story to the novel. For example, in one essay she talks about reading her manuscripts entirely out loud to a colleague before they are published. That will not surprise listeners to this audiobook since it is clear that her skills have been honed by much practice - she is a wonderful narrator.
I have been a fan of Ann Patchett for many years, and greatly appreciated the title essay of this collection when it was offered to Audible subscribers a few years ago. I also had experienced her narrating skills in her non-fiction book about her friendship with Lucy Grealy, TRUTH AND BEAUTY. I usually don't appreciate author-narrators but when they have such great skills they can really add to the personal essay read aloud - another example of this talent is Jonathan Franzen.
This book was a treat from beginning to end - everything about this collection was delightful and made me want more. I highly recommend it to essay fans, Patchett fans and those interested in the craft of writing.
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- Jill
- 12-19-20
fabulous
I've read many of Ann Patchett's novels but had not read her nonfiction. I thoroughly enjoyed this book.
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- Benjamin Woodward
- 08-02-17
Tender Real outstanding
This is my most recent favorites of Ann Patchett's books. I have a dog like Rose in my life. And she touches me in the same way. I can relate and I can grow from every page of this book. Thank you Ann for sharing these many parts of yourself and life. From fathers to floods to fears through failures and faith.
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- Laura
- 12-10-16
Wonderful essays and stories read by the author
I have loved many novels by Ann Patchett and purchased this audiobook as a Daily Deal without realizing it was a collection of shorter works, autobiographical essays that I loved hearing. An unexpected treasure trove of stories - thank you, Audible!
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Outstanding
One of the best books I've ever read. Ann Patchett is the ultimate storyteller and her narration is excellent. The stories left me breathless, each one better than the last. I love this book.
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