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Dispatches from the Swinging Door Saloon
- Poems from My 10-Year Bender Inside Heaven's Dive Bar
- Narrated by: Paul Bartlett
- Length: 58 mins
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Dispatches from the Swinging Door Saloon
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Publisher's summary
Want to feel more alive? If yes, then we recommend you buy Dispatches from the Swinging Door Saloon today! Even if you're on the fence about poetry, having grown to dislike it in school, Randall McNair will bring you over to his side of the fence - the one where the absurd lives.
In this debut collection of poems, McNair paints a humorous and vivid picture of what it was like to be a burnout in a world full of overachievers. Although at times raw and explicit, McNair’s poetry allows us inside the mind of a very creative but sad soul - one who’s stuck in a career he hates and who, through the words of a hopeless drunk, shows us how that feels.
As Clive Matson writes about the book, “Poem after poem gives us a precious gift - the gift of a person.”
So, if you’d like to feel more alive, to laugh, to cry, to feel the simple joy of a man and his beer, give yourself the gift of a person - this poet Randall McNair - and his book Dispatches from the Swinging Door Saloon. You’ll be glad you did!
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- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 983
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 728
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 724
Lit follows Mary Karr's descent into the inferno of alcoholism and madness - and her astonishing resurrection. Karr's longing for a solid family seems secure when her marriage to a handsome, Shakespeare-quoting poet produces a son they adore. But she can't outrun her apocalyptic past. She drinks herself into the same numbness that nearly devoured her charismatic but troubled mother, reaching the brink of suicide. A hair-raising stint in "The Mental Marriott" awakens her to the possibility of joy, and leads her to an unlikely faith.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Finally! One for the "Win" column
- By Kim on 03-22-10
By: Mary Karr
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Hot Water Music
- By: Charles Bukowski
- Narrated by: Christian Baskous
- Length: 5 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 146
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 131
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 131
Hot Water Music is a collection of short stories by Charles Bukowski, published in 1983. The collection deals largely with: drinking, women, gambling, and writing. It is an important collection that establishes Bukowski's minimalist style and his thematic oeuvre.
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5 out of 5 stars
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If you like Bukowski...
- By Amazon Customer on 09-08-19
By: Charles Bukowski
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The Visiting Privilege
- New and Collected Stories
- By: Joy Williams
- Narrated by: Richard Powers, Emily Woo Zeller, Elisabeth Rodgers, and others
- Length: 20 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 47
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 41
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Story4 out of 5 stars 40
Joy Williams has been celebrated as a master of the short story for four decades, her renown passing from one generation to the next even in the shifting landscape of contemporary writing. And at long last the incredible scope of her singular achievement is put on display: 33 stories drawn from three much-lauded collections and another 13 appearing here for the first time in book form.
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2 out of 5 stars
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I sure tried.
- By A.C. CALLOWAY on 01-28-24
By: Joy Williams
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On Drinking
- By: Charles Bukowski
- Narrated by: Roger Wayne
- Length: 4 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 127
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 107
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 106
Charles Bukowski turns to the bottle in this revelatory collection of poetry and prose that includes some of the writer’s best and most lasting work. A self-proclaimed “dirty old man”, Bukowski used alcohol as muse and as fuel, a conflicted relationship responsible for some of his darkest moments, as well as some of his most joyful and inspired. In On Drinking, Bukowski expert Abel Debritto has collected the writer’s most profound, funny, and memorable work on his ups and downs with the hard stuff.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Don't read this sober
- By Lowball on 03-02-19
By: Charles Bukowski
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House of Sand and Fog
- By: Andre Dubus III
- Narrated by: Andre Dubus III, Fontaine Dollas Dubus
- Length: 13 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 1,011
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 593
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Story4 out of 5 stars 597
In this riveting novel of almost unbearable suspense, three fragile yet determined people become dangerously entangled in a relentlessly escalating crisis. Colonel Behrani, once a wealthy man in Iran, is now a struggling immigrant willing to bet everything he has to restore his family's dignity. Kathy Nicolo is a troubled young woman whose house is all she has left, and who refuses to let her hard-won stability slip away from her. Sheriff Lester Burdon becomes obsessed with helping her fight for justice.
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2 out of 5 stars
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I suspect I am going to be in the minority . . .
- By BogKid on 01-12-04
By: Andre Dubus III
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The Rabbit Factory
- By: Marshall Karp
- Narrated by: Tom Stechschulte, James Jenner
- Length: 14 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 184
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 150
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Story4 out of 5 stars 151
Marshall Karp is an acclaimed playwright known for his witty sense of humor and crackling dialogue. His debut novel The Rabbit Factory stars the irreverent LAPD detective duo of Mike Lomax and Terry Biggs. Dean Lamaar is the architect of an entertainment empire and the creator of iconic characters like Rambunctious Rabbit and McGreedy the Moose.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Bizarre but engaging mystery.1st-rate performance.
- By MidwestGeek on 12-19-12
By: Marshall Karp
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Chelsea Girls
- A Novel
- By: Eileen Myles
- Narrated by: Eileen Myles
- Length: 6 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 110
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 100
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 96
In this breathtakingly inventive autobiographical novel, Eileen Myles transforms life into a work of art. Told in her audacious voice, made vivid and immediate in her lyrical language, Chelsea Girls cobbles together memories of Myles's 1960s Catholic upbringing with an alcoholic father, her volatile adolescence, her unabashed "lesbianity," and her riotous pursuit of survival as a poet in 1970s New York.
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5 out of 5 stars
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fascinatingly skanky
- By Megon J. Walker on 07-15-16
By: Eileen Myles
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Cannery Row
- By: John Steinbeck
- Narrated by: Jerry Farden
- Length: 5 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 3,376
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 2,906
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 2,889
Published in 1945, Cannery Row focuses on the acceptance of life as it is: both the exuberance of community and the loneliness of the individual. Drawing on his memories of the real inhabitants of Monterey, California, Steinbeck interweaves the stories of Doc, Henri, Mack and his boys, and the other characters in this world where only the fittest survive, to create a novel that is at once one of his most humorous and most poignant works.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Five stars with a Caveat
- By Bette on 04-23-12
By: John Steinbeck
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The Flood Girls
- A Novel
- By: Richard Fifield
- Narrated by: Kathleen Early
- Length: 12 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 1,738
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 1,569
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Story4 out of 5 stars 1,564
This snappy, sassy redemption story set in small-town Montana is "a wild and crazy debut novel by a talented young writer" (Jackie Collins), filled with an uproarious and unforgettable cast of characters you won't want to leave behind.
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5 out of 5 stars
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WOW! Just WOW.
- By chamilton on 07-09-16
By: Richard Fifield
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In Polite Company
- A Novel
- By: Gervais Hagerty
- Narrated by: Ann Marie Gideon
- Length: 9 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 67
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 66
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Story4 out of 5 stars 66
Tourists think they see the real Charleston, but Simons Smythe knows there’s more to her hometown than sweet tea and Southern hospitality. Behind the walled gardens, inside the fabled historic homes, live Charleston’s elite. Simons was born into this powerful aristocracy that has quietly ruled the city for centuries.
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2 out of 5 stars
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Disappointing
- By Sarah A on 08-31-21
By: Gervais Hagerty
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She's Come Undone
- By: Wally Lamb
- Narrated by: Linda Stephens
- Length: 18 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 2,028
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 1,761
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 1,777
Meet Dolores Price. She's 13, wise-mouthed but wounded, having bid her childhood goodbye. Beached like a whale in front of her bedroom TV, she spends the next few years nourishing herself with the Mallomars, potato chips, and Pepsi her anxious mother supplies. When she finally rolls into young womanhood at 257 pounds, Dolores is no stronger and life is no kinder. But this time she's determined to rise to the occasion and give herself one more chance before really going belly-up.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Really disappointing narrator!
- By Jessica Williams on 01-21-12
By: Wally Lamb
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A Death in Kitchawank, and Other Stories
- By: T. C. Boyle
- Narrated by: T. C. Boyle
- Length: 9 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 98
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 91
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Story4 out of 5 stars 88
Few authors write with such sheer love of story and language as T. C. Boyle, and that is nowhere more evident than in his inventive, wickedly funny, and always entertaining short stories. Here are 14 new tales previously unpublished in book form. By turns mythic and realistic, farcical and tragic, ironic and moving, Boyle's stories have mapped a wide range of human emotions. The stories here reflect his maturing themes.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Mixed Bag
- By AuntGert on 09-22-20
By: T. C. Boyle
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God-Shaped Hole
- A Novel
- By: Tiffanie DeBartolo
- Narrated by: Rachael Warren
- Length: 10 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 130
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 122
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Story4 out of 5 stars 121
When Beatrice Trixie Jordan replies to a personal ad, she meets Jacob Grace, a charming, effervescent 30-something free-spirit writer passionately seeking life. He possesses his own turns of phrase and ways of thinking and feeling that dissonantly harmonize with Trixie's off-center vision. As they rollercoaster through the joys and furies of their wrenching romance, they try to come to terms with the hurt brought about by both of their distant fathers who, in different ways, forsook them.
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5 out of 5 stars
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To see a fortune teller or not to see one...
- By Renee on 08-08-18
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The Paper Palace
- A Novel
- By: Miranda Cowley Heller
- Narrated by: Nan McNamara
- Length: 12 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 7,871
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 6,854
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Story4 out of 5 stars 6,843
It is a perfect July morning, and Elle, a 50-year-old happily married mother of three, awakens at “The Paper Palace” - the family summer place she has visited every summer of her life. But this morning is different: Last night, Elle and her oldest friend, Jonas, crept out the back door into the darkness and had sex with each other for the first time, all while their spouses chatted away inside. Now, Elle will have to decide between the life she has made with her genuinely beloved husband and the life she always imagined she would have had with her childhood love.
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3 out of 5 stars
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The story has too much child abuse discription
- By DTurek on 07-14-21
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The Drop
- By: Dennis Lehane
- Narrated by: Jim Frangione
- Length: 5 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 522
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 470
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 463
Three days after Christmas, a lonely bartender looking for a reason to live rescues an abused puppy from a trash can and meets a damaged woman looking for something to believe in. As their relationship grows, they cross paths with the Chechen mafia; a man grown dangerous with age and thwarted hopes; two hapless stick-up artists; a very curious cop; and the original owner of the puppy, who wants his dog bac.k…
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3 out of 5 stars
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THAT IS LIFE,
- By Jim "The Impatient" on 12-06-14
By: Dennis Lehane