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Apple, Tree
- Writers on Their Parents
- Narrated by: Robin Miles, full cast
- Length: 8 hrs and 26 mins
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Apple, Tree
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Publisher's Summary
It happens to us all: We think we’ve settled into an identity, a self, and then out of nowhere and with great force, the traces of our parents appear to us, in us - in mirrors, in gestures, in reaction and reactivity, at weddings and funerals, and in troubled thoughts that crouch in dark corners of our minds.
In this masterful collection of new essays, the apple looks at the tree. Twenty-five writers deftly explore a trait they’ve inherited from a parent, reflecting on how it affects the lives they lead today - how it shifts their relationship to that parent (sometimes posthumously) and to their sense of self.
Apple, Tree’s all-star lineup of writers brings eloquence, integrity, and humor to topics such as arrogance, obsession, psychics, grudges, table manners, luck, and laundry. Contributors include Laura van den Berg, S. Bear Bergman, John Freeman, Jane Hamilton, Mat Johnson, Daniel Mendelsohn, Kyoko Mori, Ann Patchett, and Sallie Tisdale, among others. Together, their pieces form a prismatic meditation on how we make fresh sense of ourselves and our parents when we see the pieces of them that live on in us.
The full list of narrators includes Elisabeth Rodgers, Kevin Kenerly, Kyla Garcia, Steven Jay Cohen, Dara Rosenberg, Janet Song, Feodor Chin, Bronson Pinchot, and Robin Miles.
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What listeners say about Apple, Tree
Average Customer RatingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall3 out of 5 stars
-
Performance3 out of 5 stars
-
Story4 out of 5 stars
- Kim
- 04-14-22
Ok.
The stories were pretty good and enlightening but some of the narration was painfully dull.
-
Overall2 out of 5 stars
-
Performance3 out of 5 stars
-
Story1 out of 5 stars
- Ronald B Larson
- 02-29-20
Tedious
While there was a bit of drama in one or two of the stories, I expected to hear at least one "Mommie Dearest".
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Seeing Ghosts
- A Memoir
- By: Kat Chow
- Narrated by: Kat Chow
- Length: 9 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 84
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 73
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Story4 out of 5 stars 72
Kat Chow has always been unusually fixated on death. She worried constantly about her parents dying - especially her mother. A vivacious and mischievous woman, Kat's mother made a morbid joke that would haunt her for years to come: When she died, she'd like to be stuffed and displayed in Kat's future apartment in order to always watch over her. After her mother dies unexpectedly from cancer, Kat, her sisters, and their father are plunged into a debilitating, lonely grief.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Real
- By C Williams on 02-06-22
By: Kat Chow
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I'll Be Seeing You
- A Memoir
- By: Elizabeth Berg
- Narrated by: Elizabeth Berg
- Length: 6 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 51
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 42
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 42
Elizabeth Berg’s father was an Army veteran who was a tough man in every way but one: He showed a great deal of love and tenderness to his wife. Berg describes her parents’ marriage as a romance that lasted for nearly 70 years; she grew up watching her father kiss her mother upon leaving home, and kiss her again the instant he came back. His idea of when he should spend time away from her was never. But then her father developed Alzheimer’s disease, and her parents were forced to leave the home they loved and move into a facility that could offer them help.
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5 out of 5 stars
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A must read for everyone
- By T on 12-22-20
By: Elizabeth Berg
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Stray
- A Memoir
- By: Stephanie Danler
- Narrated by: Alex McKenna
- Length: 7 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 123
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 103
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Story4 out of 5 stars 103
After selling her first novel - a dream she'd worked long and hard for - Stephanie Danler knew she should be happy. Instead, she found herself driven to face the difficult past she'd left behind a decade ago: a mother disabled by years of alcoholism, further handicapped by a tragic brain aneurysm; a father who abandoned the family when she was three, now a meth addict in and out of recovery.
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2 out of 5 stars
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Not for me
- By JBird Cook on 09-27-20
By: Stephanie Danler
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Tastes Like War
- A Memoir
- By: Grace M. Cho
- Narrated by: Cindy Kay
- Length: 9 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 141
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 115
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 115
Grace M. Cho grew up as the daughter of a White American merchant marine and the Korean bar hostess he met abroad. They were one of few immigrants in a xenophobic small town during the Cold War, where identity was politicized by everyday details - language, cultural references, memories, and food. When Grace was 15, her dynamic mother experienced the onset of schizophrenia. Tastes Like War is a hybrid text about a daughter’s search through intimate and global history for the roots of her mother’s schizophrenia.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Incredible
- By Anonymous User on 10-02-21
By: Grace M. Cho
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The Beauty of Living Twice
- By: Sharon Stone
- Narrated by: Sharon Stone
- Length: 7 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 964
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 846
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 840
Sharon Stone, one of the most renowned actresses in the world, suffered a massive stroke that cost her not only her health, but her career, family, fortune, and global fame. In The Beauty of Living Twice, Stone chronicles her efforts to rebuild her life and writes about her slow road back to wholeness and health. In a business that doesn’t accept failure, in a world where too many voices are silenced, Stone found the power to return, the courage to speak up, and the will to make a difference in the lives of men, women, and children around the globe.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Change after a close encounter with Death
- By Maktoum Saeed Al-Maktoum on 04-04-21
By: Sharon Stone
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Sunshine Girl
- An Unexpected Life
- By: Julianna Margulies
- Narrated by: Julianna Margulies
- Length: 8 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 988
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 860
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 852
As an apple-cheeked bubbly child, Julianna was bestowed with the family nickname “Sunshine Girl”. Shuttled back and forth between her divorced parents, often on different continents, she quickly learned how to be of value to her eccentric mother and her absent father.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Cringe-y at times, but entertaining
- By Jeannette L. on 06-21-21
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Enough
- Notes from a Woman Who Has Finally Found It
- By: Shauna M. Ahern
- Narrated by: Shauna M. Ahern
- Length: 5 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 62
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 60
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Story5 out of 5 stars 60
Like so many American women, Shauna M. Ahern spent decades feeling not good enough about her body, about money, and about her worth in this culture. For a decade, with the help of her husband, she ran a successful food blog, wrote award-winning cookbooks, and raised two children. In the midst of this, at age 48, she suffered a mini-stroke. Tests revealed she would recover fully, but when her doctor impressed upon her that emotional stress can cause physical damage, she dove deep inside herself to understand and let go of a lifetime of damaging patterns of thought.
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5 out of 5 stars
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So far best book of 2020
- By CuzImHappy on 02-11-20
By: Shauna M. Ahern
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Brother & Sister
- A Memoir
- By: Diane Keaton
- Narrated by: Diane Keaton
- Length: 4 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 190
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 155
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 155
When they were children in the suburbs of Los Angeles in the 1950s, Diane Keaton and her younger brother, Randy, were best friends and companions: They shared stories at night in their bunk beds; they swam, laughed, dressed up for Halloween. Their mother captured their American-dream childhoods in her diaries, and on camera. But as they grew up, Randy became troubled, then reclusive. By the time he reached adulthood, he was divorced, an alcoholic, a man who couldn't hold on to full-time work - his life a world away from his sister's, and from the rest of their family.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Beautifully Sad
- By Chad Frontz on 02-06-20
By: Diane Keaton
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Lots of Candles, Plenty of Cake
- A Memoir of a Woman's Life
- By: Anna Quindlen
- Narrated by: Anna Quindlen
- Length: 7 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 541
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 454
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Story4 out of 5 stars 458
In this irresistible memoir, the New York Times best-selling author and winner of the Pulitzer Prize Anna Quindlen writes about looking back and ahead - and celebrating it all - as she considers marriage, girlfriends, our mothers, faith, loss, all the stuff in our closets, and more. Lots of Candles, Plenty of Cake is filled with the sharp insights and revealing observations that have long confirmed Quindlen’s status as America’s laureate of real life.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Worth a listen!
- By Sheila A. Dechantal on 05-12-12
By: Anna Quindlen
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The Travelers
- A Novel
- By: Regina Porter
- Narrated by: Bahni Turpin, Dominic Hoffman
- Length: 11 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 65
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 61
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Story4 out of 5 stars 60
Meet James Samuel Vincent, an affluent Manhattan attorney who shirks his modest Irish-American background but hews to his father’s meandering ways. James muddles through a topsy-turvy relationship with his son, Rufus, which is further complicated when Rufus marries Claudia Christie. Claudia’s mother - Agnes Miller Christie - is a beautiful African-American woman who survives a chance encounter on a Georgia road that propels her into a new life in the Bronx. Soon after, her husband, Eddie Christie, is called to duty on an air craft carrier in Vietnam.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Each character is quite a character.
- By Anonymous User on 01-01-22
By: Regina Porter
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The Wreckage of My Presence
- Essays
- By: Casey Wilson
- Narrated by: Casey Wilson
- Length: 6 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 1,781
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 1,564
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 1,555
Casey Wilson has a lot on her mind and she isn’t afraid to share. In this dazzling collection, each essay skillfully constructed and brimming with emotion, she shares her thoughts on the joys and vagaries of modern-day womanhood and motherhood, introduces the not-quite-typical family that made her who she is, and persuasively argues that lowbrow pop culture is the perfect lens through which to examine human nature.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Would have been 5 stars without the political commentary
- By Leslie Francis on 05-14-21
By: Casey Wilson
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Count the Ways
- A Novel
- By: Joyce Maynard
- Narrated by: Joyce Maynard
- Length: 15 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 534
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 467
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 467
In her most ambitious novel to date, New York Times best-selling author Joyce Maynard returns to the themes that are the hallmarks of her most acclaimed work in a mesmerizing story of a family - from the hopeful early days of young marriage to parenthood, divorce, and the costly aftermath that ripples through all their lives
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4 out of 5 stars
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AA Deeply Felt Story that Sometimes Goes Too Far Afield…
- By Molly on 07-18-21
By: Joyce Maynard
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The Escape Artist
- By: Helen Fremont
- Narrated by: Gabra Zackman
- Length: 8 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 299
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 262
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 261
In the tradition of Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home and George Hodgman’s Bettyville, Fremont writes with wit and candor about growing up in a household held together by a powerful glue: secrets. Her parents, profoundly affected by their memories of the Holocaust, pass on, to both Helen and her older sister a zealous determination to protect themselves from what they see as danger from the outside world.
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5 out of 5 stars
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The Ties that Bind...Survival of the Misfits.
- By Elisa on 06-18-20
By: Helen Fremont
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Malaya
- Essays on Freedom
- By: Cinelle Barnes
- Narrated by: Cinelle Barnes
- Length: 7 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 18
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 18
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Story5 out of 5 stars 18
Out of a harrowing childhood in the Philippines, Cinelle Barnes emerged triumphant. But as an undocumented teenager living in New York, her journey of self-discovery was just beginning. Because she couldn’t get a driver’s license or file taxes, Cinelle worked as a cleaning lady and a nanny and took other odd jobs - and learned to look over her shoulder, hoping she wouldn’t get caught.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Captivating and powerful
- By Megan on 12-18-19
By: Cinelle Barnes
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In the Shadow of the Valley
- A Memoir
- By: Bobi Conn
- Narrated by: Bobi Conn
- Length: 10 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 286
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 241
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 240
Bobi Conn was raised in a remote Kentucky holler in 1980s Appalachia. She remembers her tin-roofed house tucked away in a vast forest paradise; the sparkling creeks, with their frogs and crawdads; the sweet blackberries growing along the road to her granny’s; and her abusive father. An elegiac account of survival despite being born poor, female, and cloistered, Bobi’s testament is one of hope for all vulnerable populations, particularly women and girls caught in the cycle of poverty and abuse.
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2 out of 5 stars
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Hard Pass
- By Kathryn Liggett on 06-13-20
By: Bobi Conn
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An Only Child and Her Sister
- A Memoir
- By: Casey Maxwell Clair
- Narrated by: Donna Postel
- Length: 9 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 62
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 51
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 51
Casey and her little sister, Christine, started off with what looked like a good beginning. But looks can be deceiving. Their mother, Eve Whitney, a stunning Hollywood beauty, didn't much care for children. Their father, Eddie Maxwell, was a successful songwriter and gag man; he was a brilliant, handsome, hugely charismatic man, but he had a secret drug habit that sent him careening between warm and loving parent one day, to hair-trigger monster the next.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Depressing narration
- By Baytown Anita on 01-08-21