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Breathing Lessons
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Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant
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Listen to it More Than Once
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Clock Dance
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Willa Drake can count on one hand the defining moments of her life. In 1967, she is a schoolgirl coping with her mother's sudden disappearance. In 1977, she is a college coed considering a marriage proposal. In 1997, she is a young widow trying to piece her life back together. And in 2017, she yearns to be a grandmother but isn't sure she ever will be. Then, one day, Willa receives a startling phone call from a stranger. Without fully understanding why, she flies across the country to Baltimore....
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Phenomenal Story Telling
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The Accidental Tourist
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 610
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Meet Macon Leary--a travel writer who hates both travel and strangeness. Grounded by loneliness, comfort, and a somewhat odd domestic life, Macon is about to embark on a surprising new adventure, arriving in the form of a fuzzy-haired dog obedience trainer who promises to turn his life around.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Extraordinary How Underwhelmed I Am
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Ladder of Years
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 110
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 89
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Story4 out of 5 stars 89
"Baltimore woman disappears during family vacation" declares the headline. Forty-year-old Delia Grinstead is last seen strolling down the Delaware shore, wearing nothing more than a bathing suit and carrying a beach tote with five hundred dollars tucked inside. To her husband and three almost-grown children, she has vanished without trace or reason. But for Delia, "walking away from it all" is not a premeditated act, but an impulse that will lead her into a new, exciting, and unimagined life.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Another interesting, dysfunctional, family
- By Mary E. Mcgibbon on 09-03-16
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Back When We Were Grownups
- By: Anne Tyler
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- Length: 8 hrs and 53 mins
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Overall3.5 out of 5 stars 205
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 57
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Back When We Were Grownups is about one woman's search for who she really is. Listen as a 53-year-old grandmother tries to recover her girlhood self and that dignified grownup she had once been.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Wonderful characters
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A Spool of Blue Thread
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"It was a beautiful, breezy, yellow-and-green afternoon..." This is how Abby Whitshank always begins the story of how she fell in love with Red that day in July 1959. The Whitshanks are one of those families that radiate togetherness: an indefinable, enviable kind of specialness. But they are also like all families, in that the stories they tell themselves reveal only part of the picture.
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5 out of 5 stars
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From a LONG Time Anne Tyler fan
- By S. Elder on 09-29-15
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Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant
- By: Anne Tyler
- Narrated by: Suzanne Toren
- Length: 13 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall3.5 out of 5 stars 275
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 222
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Story4 out of 5 stars 219
Pearl Tull is nearing the end of her life but not of her memory. It was a Sunday night in 1944 when her husband left the little row house on Baltimore’s Calvert Street, abandoning Pearl to raise their three children alone....
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4 out of 5 stars
-
Listen to it More Than Once
- By Babette on 06-13-11
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Clock Dance
- A Novel
- By: Anne Tyler
- Narrated by: Kimberly Farr
- Length: 9 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall3.5 out of 5 stars 660
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 598
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Story3.5 out of 5 stars 595
Willa Drake can count on one hand the defining moments of her life. In 1967, she is a schoolgirl coping with her mother's sudden disappearance. In 1977, she is a college coed considering a marriage proposal. In 1997, she is a young widow trying to piece her life back together. And in 2017, she yearns to be a grandmother but isn't sure she ever will be. Then, one day, Willa receives a startling phone call from a stranger. Without fully understanding why, she flies across the country to Baltimore....
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5 out of 5 stars
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Phenomenal Story Telling
- By Mr. Johnny White on 08-02-18
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The Accidental Tourist
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- Length: 11 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 668
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 610
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Story4 out of 5 stars 611
Meet Macon Leary--a travel writer who hates both travel and strangeness. Grounded by loneliness, comfort, and a somewhat odd domestic life, Macon is about to embark on a surprising new adventure, arriving in the form of a fuzzy-haired dog obedience trainer who promises to turn his life around.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Extraordinary How Underwhelmed I Am
- By Gillian on 05-13-15
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Ladder of Years
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- Narrated by: Kelly Lintz
- Length: 11 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 110
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 89
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Story4 out of 5 stars 89
"Baltimore woman disappears during family vacation" declares the headline. Forty-year-old Delia Grinstead is last seen strolling down the Delaware shore, wearing nothing more than a bathing suit and carrying a beach tote with five hundred dollars tucked inside. To her husband and three almost-grown children, she has vanished without trace or reason. But for Delia, "walking away from it all" is not a premeditated act, but an impulse that will lead her into a new, exciting, and unimagined life.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Another interesting, dysfunctional, family
- By Mary E. Mcgibbon on 09-03-16
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Back When We Were Grownups
- By: Anne Tyler
- Narrated by: Blair Brown
- Length: 8 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall3.5 out of 5 stars 205
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 57
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Story4 out of 5 stars 59
Back When We Were Grownups is about one woman's search for who she really is. Listen as a 53-year-old grandmother tries to recover her girlhood self and that dignified grownup she had once been.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Wonderful characters
- By Barbara on 08-19-03
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A Spool of Blue Thread
- A Novel
- By: Anne Tyler
- Narrated by: Kimberly Farr
- Length: 13 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall3.5 out of 5 stars 2,166
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 1,902
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Story3.5 out of 5 stars 1,912
"It was a beautiful, breezy, yellow-and-green afternoon..." This is how Abby Whitshank always begins the story of how she fell in love with Red that day in July 1959. The Whitshanks are one of those families that radiate togetherness: an indefinable, enviable kind of specialness. But they are also like all families, in that the stories they tell themselves reveal only part of the picture.
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5 out of 5 stars
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From a LONG Time Anne Tyler fan
- By S. Elder on 09-29-15
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Saint Maybe
- By: Anne Tyler
- Narrated by: Eric Michael Summerer
- Length: 11 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 96
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 87
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Story4 out of 5 stars 88
In 1965, the happy Bedloe family is living an ideal, apple-pie existence in Baltimore. Then, in the blink of an eye, a single tragic event occurs that will transform their lives forever--particularly that of 17-year-old Ian Bedloe, the youngest son, who blames himself for the sudden "accidental" death of his older brother. Depressed and depleted, Ian is almost crushed under the weight of an unbearable, secret guilt.Then one crisp January evening, he catches sight of a window with glowing yellow neon, the Church of the Second Chance.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Saint Maybe
- By Gretchen on 07-17-18
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A Patchwork Planet
- By: Anne Tyler
- Narrated by: Kevin T. Collins
- Length: 9 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 36
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 31
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Story4 out of 5 stars 31
Barnaby Gaitlin has been in trouble ever since adolescence. He had this habit of breaking into other people's houses. It wasn't the big loot he was after, like his teenage cohorts. It was just that he liked to read other people's mail, pore over their family photo albums, and appropriate a few of their precious mementos. But for 11 years now, he's been working steadily for Rent-a-Back, renting his back to old folks and shut-ins who can't move their own porch furniture or bring the Christmas tree down from the attic. But it looks as though his world may fall apart again....
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3 out of 5 stars
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Good character but not-so-good story
- By Lee Horton on 02-19-15
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The Amateur Marriage
- A Novel
- By: Anne Tyler
- Narrated by: Blair Brown
- Length: 10 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall3.5 out of 5 stars 155
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 58
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Story4 out of 5 stars 58
They seemed like the perfect couple: young, good-looking, made for each other. The moment Pauline, a stranger to the Polish Eastern Avenue neighborhood of Baltimore (though she lived only twenty minutes away), walked into his mother's grocery store, Michael was smitten. And in the heat of World War II fervor, they are propelled into a hasty wedding. But they never should have married.
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1 out of 5 stars
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Disappointing
- By Lisa on 01-25-04
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Foreign Affairs
- By: Alison Lurie
- Narrated by: Jennifer Van Dyck
- Length: 10 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 184
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 151
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Story4 out of 5 stars 149
Virginia Miner, a 50-something, unmarried tenured professor, is in London to work on her new book about children's folk rhymes. Despite carrying a U.S. passport, Vinnie feels essentially English and rather looks down on her fellow Americans. But in spite of that, she is drawn into a mortifying and oddly satisfying affair with an Oklahoman tourist who dresses more Bronco Billy than Beau Brummel.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Fascinating
- By Margaret on 03-16-12
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If Morning Ever Comes
- By: Anne Tyler
- Narrated by: Jennifer Van Dyck
- Length: 6 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall3.5 out of 5 stars 24
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 16
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Story4 out of 5 stars 16
Tyler’s first novel, written when she was 22 years old. Ben Joe Hawkes comes from a large, cheerful family of women. But when one of his sisters takes her baby and leaves her husband, everything--including his perceptions of the past--changes.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Tugged at my heartstrings..each character so perfectly presented
- By B. Romero on 10-08-18
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The Gap of Time
- William Shakespeare's The Winter's Tale Retold: A Novel
- By: Jeanette Winterson
- Narrated by: Penelope Rawlins, Mark Bazeley, Ben Onwukwe
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- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 67
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 57
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Story4 out of 5 stars 57
In The Gap of Time, Jeanette Winterson's cover version of The Winter's Tale, we move from London, a city reeling after the 2008 financial crisis, to a storm-ravaged American city called New Bohemia. Her story is one of childhood friendship, money, status, technology, and the elliptical nature of time. Written with energy and wit, this is a story of the consuming power of jealousy on the one hand and redemption and the enduring love of a lost child on the other.
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4 out of 5 stars
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The men are great
- By DRVanDyke on 03-14-16
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Digging to America
- A Novel
- By: Anne Tyler
- Narrated by: Blair Brown
- Length: 8 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 383
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 101
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Story4 out of 5 stars 102
Two families, who would otherwise never have come together, meet by chance at the Baltimore airport: the Donaldsons, a very American couple, and the Yazdans, Maryam's fully assimilated son and his attractive Iranian wife. Each couple is awaiting the arrival of an adopted infant daughter from Korea. After the instant babies from distant Asia are delivered, Bitsy Donaldson impulsively invites the Yazdans to celebrate.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Life in transition
- By Everett Leiter on 08-20-06
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Ironweed
- By: William Kennedy
- Narrated by: Jonathan Davis
- Length: 8 hrs
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 113
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 93
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Story4 out of 5 stars 91
Francis Phelan, ex-ballplayer, part-time gravedigger, full-time drunk, has hit bottom. Years ago he left Albany in a hurry after killing a scab during a trolley workers' strike; he ran away again after accidentally – and fatally – dropping his infant son. Now, in 1938, Francis is back in town, roaming the old familiar streets with his hobo pal, Helen, trying to make peace with the ghosts of the past and the present.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Darkly Lovely
- By Michael on 07-22-17
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Atomic Marriage
- By: Curtis Sittenfeld
- Narrated by: Diane Lane
- Length: 58 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall3.5 out of 5 stars 8,329
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 7,507
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Story3.5 out of 5 stars 7,482
All marriages are hard. Many of them fail. Brock Lewis, an evangelical businessman turned self-published author, has the answer. Follow his international bestselling book’s 12-point “Atomic Doctrine” - make eye contact with your spouse? Always! Use the bathroom in front of them? Never! - and you, too, can build a marriage that thrives.
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5 out of 5 stars
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A nice quick escape
- By Michele on 01-09-19
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A Summons to Memphis
- By: Peter Taylor
- Narrated by: Boyd Gaines
- Length: 6 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall3.5 out of 5 stars 69
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 48
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Story3.5 out of 5 stars 49
Born in 1917, Tennessee author Peter Taylor won the Pulitzer Prize for this exceptional work of literature. The well-to-do Carver family moves to Memphis from Nashville, where they become embroiled in a domestic dispute over the widower patriarch's decision to remarry.
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2 out of 5 stars
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This was boring, I didn't finish it
- By LaDonna Degan on 10-22-15
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Virgil Wander
- By: Leif Enger
- Narrated by: MacLeod Andrews
- Length: 10 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 182
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 173
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 171
Midwestern movie house owner Virgil Wander is "cruising along at medium altitude" when his car flies off the road into icy Lake Superior. Virgil survives, but his language and memory are altered, and he emerges into a world no longer familiar to him. Awakening in this new life, Virgil begins to piece together his personal history and the lore of his broken town, with the help of a cast of affable and curious locals. Into this community returns a shimmering prodigal son who may hold the key to reviving their town.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Not a Minnesota Accent
- By Caritas on 10-09-18
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A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain
- By: Robert Olen Butler
- Narrated by: Robert Olen Butler
- Length: 9 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 99
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 89
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Story4 out of 5 stars 89
Robert Olen Butler's lyrical and poignant collection of stories about the aftermath of the Vietnam War and its impact on the Vietnamese was acclaimed by critics across the nation and won the Pulitzer Prize in 1993. This edition includes two subsequently published stories - "Salem" and "Missing" - that brilliantly complete the collection's narrative journey with a return to the jungles of Vietnam.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Messages from Vietnam
- By David on 04-24-17
Publisher's Summary
Maggie and Ira Moran have been married for 28 years... and it shows: in their quarrels, in their routines, in their ability to tolerate with affection each other's eccentricities. Maggie, a kooky, lovable meddler and an irrepressible optimist, wants nothing more than to fix her son's broken marriage. Ira is infuriatingly practical, a man "who should have married Ann Landers". And what begins as a day trip to a funeral becomes an adventure in the unexpected.
As Maggie and Ira navigate the riotous twists and turns, they intersect with an assorted cast of eccentrics - and rediscover the magic of the road called life and the joy of having somebody next to you to share the ride - bumps and all.
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Overall
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3.5 out of 5 stars
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4 out of 5 stars
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5 Stars44
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3.5 out of 5 stars
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5 Stars21
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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
- Rita
- Anchorage, AK, USA
- 05-01-13
Narration spoiled it for me
Anne Tyler's work is delicate and subtle. Suzanne Toren's narration was so un-subtle it totally destroyed the book. It made the situations and the characters seem absolutely inane. A much better narrator of Anne Tyler's work is Elisabeth Rodgers, whose performance of Earthly Possessions is nuanced, at times ironic. I have been a very active Audible listener for many years, and I can remember only one other book I was unable to finish because of the narrator.
8 of 10 people found this review helpful
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- Kelly
- Colorado Springs
- 05-31-18
Intimate and Brutal at the same time.
I loved this book. It felt deeply personal and almost intrusive. It felt as though I was the fly on the wall, listening to private conversations and spying on Maggie and Ira. I have not read any books by Tyler before now, and I am so glad to have finally gotten to this one. The writing is languid and intimate. The story is a slow-burn, and the characterization is complex and profound. We only see one day in their lives, but it seems to tell us everything about their marriage. I know Maggie. I know Ira. And, while they are both flawed and often unlikable I still came away from the book liking both of them.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful
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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
- Laura
- Marina del Rey, CA, United States
- 07-24-15
One of my favorite authors
I liked the story and the performance Tyler describes what it means to be human. Often so beautifully written it hurts and is joyful.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful
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Overall2 out of 5 stars
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Performance3 out of 5 stars
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Story1 out of 5 stars
- AI
- 12-28-18
Boring
This was a SLOW character development story that didn't really go anywhere. It was depressing.
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Overall2 out of 5 stars
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Performance3 out of 5 stars
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Story2 out of 5 stars
- Jason Wilford Neville
- 08-04-16
sometimes less is more
As a character portrait, it was okay. Should've been a short story, not a novel.
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Overall2 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story2 out of 5 stars
- Jennifer Y.
- Waldorf, MD, US
- 05-19-18
Good, but disappointing......
This is the third book I have listened to by this author. I feel like each book the family had a major problem they all deal with in the books. The problem is never resolved... each book the reader is left hanging. The characters are great, but I felt disappointed at the end of each book. I felt like did everything work out or not???
0 of 1 people found this review helpful
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Overall3 out of 5 stars
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Performance2 out of 5 stars
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Story2 out of 5 stars
- Mark
- Boston, MA, United States
- 01-29-18
Shocked
I expected this to be at the level of accidental tourist. I was shocked this was award winning. Wasted my time reading it.
0 of 2 people found this review helpful