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How Not to Drown in a Glass of Water
- Narrated by: Kimberly M. Wetherell, Rossmery Almonte
- Length: 6 hrs and 16 mins
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Publisher's summary
From the author of the Women's Prize-shortlisted Dominicana comes an inventive, funny and deeply moving new novel about a Dominican-American woman who has lost her job, her son and her sense of purpose but is fighting to get it all back.
Write this down: Cara Romero wants to work.
Cara Romero thought she would work at the factory of little lamps for the rest of her life. But when, in her mid-50s, she loses her job in the Great Recession, she is forced back into the job market for the first time in decades. Set up with a job counselor, Cara instead begins to narrate the story of her life. Over the course of twelve sessions, Cara recounts her tempestuous love affairs, her alternately biting and loving relationships with her neighbor Lulu and her sister Angela, her struggles with debt, gentrification and loss, and, eventually, what really happened between her and her estranged son, Fernando. As Cara confronts her darkest secrets and regrets, we see a woman buffeted by life but still full of fight.
Structurally inventive and emotionally kaleidoscopic, How Not to Drown in a Glass of Water is Angie Cruz's most ambitious and moving novel yet, and Cara is a heroine for the ages.
Critic reviews
"One of my favorite books I have read in years." (Quiara Alegria Hudes, Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright and screenwriter of In the Heights)
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-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 43
In 1992, Count Phillippe Pozzo di Borgo, on the heels of his wife's diagnosis with a terminal illness, suffered a paragliding accident that left him a quadriplegic. Forty-two years old, trapped inside his luxurious Paris town house, he was an outcast for the first time in his life. Abdel, an unemployed Algerian immigrant who had been an outcast for his entire existence, would become Phillipe's unlikely caretaker. Quick-thinking, unsentimental, and more than a little wild, Abdel surprises both himself and his employer.
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5 out of 5 stars
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loved it
- By RockyDog on 01-31-19
By: Abdel Sellou
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Tiger, Tiger
- A Memoir
- By: Margaux Fragoso
- Narrated by: Susan Bennett
- Length: 12 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 223
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 190
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 190
One summer day, Margaux Fragoso meets Peter Curran at the neighborhood swimming pool, and they begin to play. She is seven; he is 51. When Peter invites her and her mother to his house, the little girl finds a child’s paradise of exotic pets and an elaborate backyard garden. Her mother, beset by mental illness and overwhelmed by caring for Margaux, is grateful for the attention Peter lavishes on her, and he creates an imaginative universe for her, much as Lewis Carroll did for his real-life Alice.
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3 out of 5 stars
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a weirdly loving diatribe against pervs.
- By Dane Flakeman on 05-21-11
By: Margaux Fragoso
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In Order to Live
- A North Korean Girl's Journey to Freedom
- By: Yeonmi Park
- Narrated by: Eji Kim
- Length: 9 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 5,785
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 5,092
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Story5 out of 5 stars 5,087
In In Order to Live, Yeonmi Park shines a light not just into the darkest corners of life in North Korea, describing the deprivation and deception she endured and which millions of North Korean people continue to endure to this day, but also onto her own most painful and difficult memories. She tells with bravery and dignity for the first time the story of how she and her mother were betrayed and sold into sexual slavery in China and forced to suffer terrible psychological and physical hardship before they finally made their way to Seoul, South Korea - and to freedom.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Wow. What a story!
- By Jfm on 02-01-16
By: Yeonmi Park
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Maya's Notebook
- By: Isabel Allende
- Narrated by: Maria Cabezas
- Length: 14 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 410
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 359
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 361
Neglected by her parents, 19-year-old Maya Nidal has grown up in Berkeley with her grandparents. Her grandmother Nini is a force of nature, a woman whose formidable strength helped her build a new life after emigrating from Chile in 1973. Popo, Maya's grandfather, is a gentle man whose solid, comforting presence helps calm the turbulence of Maya's adolescence. When Popo dies of cancer, Maya goes completely off the rails, turning to drugs, alcohol, and petty crime in a downward spiral that eventually bottoms out in Las Vegas.
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1 out of 5 stars
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Narrator ruins this book
- By R.J. Mulder on 05-13-14
By: Isabel Allende
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Forgotten
- By: Nicole Trope
- Narrated by: Susan Strafford
- Length: 9 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 82
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 75
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 75
All Malia needed was a single litre of milk, and now she's surrounded by police and Zach has disappeared. Detective Ali Greenberg knows that this is not the best case for her - not with her history, but she has to get back to work at some point. Edna is worried about the new residents at the boardinghouse. She knows Mary would turn in her grave if she knew the kinds of people her son was letting in. And then there is someone else. Someone whose heart is broken.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Wow!
- By Ann on 11-27-17
By: Nicole Trope
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Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close
- By: Jonathan Safran Foer
- Narrated by: Jeff Woodman, Barbara Caruso, Richard Ferrone
- Length: 10 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 4,311
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 3,214
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Story4 out of 5 stars 3,226
Jonathan Safran Foer's best-selling debut novel, Everything Is Illuminated, wowed critics on its way to winning several literary prizes, including Book of the Year honors from the Los Angeles Times. It has been published in 24 countries and will soon be a major motion picture. Foer's talent continues to shine in this sometimes hilarious and always heartfelt follow-up.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Hard book to review
- By Jbug on 12-27-09
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Find Me Unafraid
- Love, Loss, and Hope in an African Slum
- By: Kennedy Odede, Jessica Posner
- Narrated by: Korey Jackson, Mandy Siegfried, P.J. Ochlan (foreword)
- Length: 11 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 353
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 319
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Story5 out of 5 stars 317
Find Me Unafraid tells the uncommon love story between two uncommon people whose collaboration sparked a successful movement to transform the lives of vulnerable girls and the urban poor. With a foreword by Nicholas Kristof.
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5 out of 5 stars
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A difficult and rewarding listen
- By R. MCRACKAN on 08-23-18
By: Kennedy Odede, and others
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One Amazing Thing
- By: Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
- Narrated by: Purva Bedi, Soneela Nankani, Neil Shah
- Length: 7 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 124
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 99
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Story4 out of 5 stars 97
Winner of a Pushcart Prize for poetry and an American Book Award for her short stories, Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni explores themes of women, immigration, and her vibrant Indian culture to great effect. Divakaruni expands on these ideas in One Amazing Thing, a project long in the making and full of electric prose.
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3 out of 5 stars
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An ok way to kill some time
- By R.Reader on 11-07-12
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Peace from Broken Pieces
- How to Get Through What You're Going Through
- By: Iyanla Vanzant
- Narrated by: Iyanla Vanzant
- Length: 11 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 2,099
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 1,846
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Story5 out of 5 stars 1,852
Best-selling author Iyanla Vanzant recounts the last decade of her life and the spiritual lessons learned—from the price of success during her meteoric rise as a TV celebrity on Oprah, the Iyanla TV show (produced by Barbara Walters), to the dissolution of her marriage and her daughter’s 15 months of illness and death on Christmas day. Like a phoenix rising from the ashes, Iyanla shares why everything we need to learn is reflected in our relationships and explains the strength and wisdom she has gained by supporting others.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Iyanla is Inspirational! A GREAT LISTEN!!!
- By Theresa on 12-04-11
By: Iyanla Vanzant
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Bettyville
- By: George Hodgman
- Narrated by: Jeff Woodman
- Length: 10 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 368
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 329
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Story4 out of 5 stars 329
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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1 out of 5 stars
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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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Gloria
- By: Kerry Young
- Narrated by: Robin Miles
- Length: 12 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 29
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 27
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 27
Jamaica, 1938. Gloria Campbell is sixteen years old when a single violent act alters the course of her life forever. Taking along her younger sister, she flees their hometown to forge a new life in Kingston. But in a capital city awash with change, a black woman is still treated as a second-class citizen. From a room in a boarding house and a job at a supply store, Gloria finds her way to a house of ill repute on the edge of the city, intrigued by the glamorous, financially independent women within.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Awesome story! And Robin Miles is a star!!
- By atlfolk on 06-23-18
By: Kerry Young
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The Turner House
- By: Angela Flournoy
- Narrated by: Adenrele Ojo
- Length: 12 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 663
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 593
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Story4 out of 5 stars 595
The Turners have lived on Yarrow Street for over 50 years. Their house has seen 13 children grown and gone - and some returned; it has seen the arrival of grandchildren, the fall of Detroit's East Side, and the loss of a father. The house still stands despite abandoned lots, an embattled city, and the inevitable shift outward to the suburbs. But now, as ailing matriarch Viola finds herself forced to leave her home and move in with her eldest son, the family discovers that the house is worth just a 10th of its mortgage.
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3 out of 5 stars
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The narrator's performance made the difference.
- By KT on 06-11-15
By: Angela Flournoy
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The Girl Who Smiled Beads
- A Story of War and What Comes After
- By: Clemantine Wamariya, Elizabeth Weil
- Narrated by: Robin Miles
- Length: 9 hrs
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 632
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 539
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 537
Clemantine Wamariya was six years old when her mother and father began to speak in whispers, when neighbors began to disappear, and when she heard the loud, ugly sounds her brother said were thunder. In 1994, she and her fifteen-year-old sister, Claire, fled the Rwandan massacre and spent the next six years migrating through seven African countries, searching for safety—perpetually hungry, imprisoned and abused, enduring and escaping refugee camps, finding unexpected kindness, witnessing inhuman cruelty. They did not know whether their parents were dead or alive.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Narrator detracts from story
- By Laura on 01-16-19
By: Clemantine Wamariya, and others
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The Pursuit of Happyness (Abridged)
- By: Chris Gardner
- Narrated by: Andre Blake
- Length: 5 hrs and 42 mins
- Abridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 418
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 256
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 256
At the age of 20, Chris Gardner arrived in San Francisco to pursue a promising career in medicine. However, he surprised everyone and himself by setting his sights on the competitive world of high finance. Yet no sooner had he landed an entry-level position at a prestigious firm, Gardner found himself caught in a web of incredibly challenging circumstances that left him part of the city's working homeless with his toddler son.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Very Good Story!
- By Lito Da Critic on 06-02-06
By: Chris Gardner
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Before We Visit the Goddess
- By: Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
- Narrated by: Sneha Mathan, Priya Ayyar, Vikas Adam
- Length: 7 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 783
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 716
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Story4 out of 5 stars 719
The daughter of a poor baker in rural Bengal, India, Sabitri yearns to get an education, but her family's situation means college is an impossible dream. Then an influential woman from Kolkata takes Sabitri under her wing, but her generosity soon proves dangerous after the girl makes a single unforgivable misstep. Years later, Sabitri's own daughter, Bela, haunted by her mother's choices, flees abroad with her political refugee lover - but the America she finds is vastly different from the country she'd imagined.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Absolutely Worth a Credit
- By Texastanya on 08-27-16
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Your Voice in My Head
- A Memoir
- By: Emma Forrest
- Narrated by: Emma Forrest
- Length: 5 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 343
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 319
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Story4 out of 5 stars 317
Emma Forrest, a British journalist, was just 22 and living the fast life in New York City when she realized that her quirks had gone beyond eccentricity. In a cycle of loneliness, damaging relationships, and destructive behavior, she found herself in the chair of a slim, balding, and effortlessly optimistic psychiatrist--a man whose wisdom and humanity would wrench her from the dangerous tide after she tried to end her life.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Great, quick read
- By Amazon Customer on 02-12-21
By: Emma Forrest
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My Real Children
- By: Jo Walton
- Narrated by: Alison Larkin
- Length: 9 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 126
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 109
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Story4 out of 5 stars 111
It's 2015, and Patricia Cowan is very old. "Confused today," read the notes clipped to the end of her bed. She forgets things she should know - what year it is, major events in the lives of her children. But she remembers things that don't seem possible. She remembers marrying Mark and having four children. And she remembers not marrying Mark and raising three children with Bee instead.
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3 out of 5 stars
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A strange take on an otherwise simple story.
- By Lauren on 01-08-15
By: Jo Walton