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In the Penal Colony
- Narrated by: Deaver Brown
- Length: 1 hr and 15 mins
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In the Penal Colony
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The story is set in an unnamed penal colony. In the Penal Colony describes the last use of an elaborate torture and execution device that carves the sentence of the condemned prisoner on his skin in a script before letting him die, all in the course of 12 hours. As the plot unfolds, the listener learns more and more about the machine, including its origin, and original justification.
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 373
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 372
When the body of a suicide victim disappears at West Point Military Academy in 1831, only to be discovered hours later missing its heart, the Academy calls on retired detective Gus Landor to investigate. Landor is something of a legend among his peers, noted for an uncanny, Holmesian ability to read people. When Edgar Allan Poe, a new cadet, comes forth with his own cryptic conclusion—that the man Landor is looking for is a poet—Landor is intrigued and enlists Poe as his assistant.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Could not get through it
- By Amazon Customer on 10-25-15
By: Louis Bayard
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Blind Goddess
- A Hanne Wilhelmsen Novel, Book 1
- By: Tom Geddes - translator, Anne Holt
- Narrated by: Kate Reading
- Length: 11 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 135
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 115
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Story4 out of 5 stars 116
A small-time drug dealer is found battered to death on the outskirts of the Norwegian capital, Oslo. A young Dutchman, walking aimlessly in central Oslo covered in blood, is taken into custody but refuses to talk. When he is informed that the woman who discovered the body, Karen Borg, is a lawyer, he demands her as his defender, although her specialty is civil, not criminal, law. The young man is adamant: he will speak to Karen Borg, and to her alone.
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2 out of 5 stars
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Not Sure Why I Didn't Like It
- By Tracey Rains on 05-28-13
By: Tom Geddes - translator, and others
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Fatelessness
- A Novel
- By: Imre Kertész, Tom Wilkinson - translator
- Narrated by: Josh Bloomberg
- Length: 8 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 37
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 33
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Story5 out of 5 stars 33
At the age of 14, György Köves is plucked from his home in a Jewish section of Budapest and, without any particular malice, placed on a train to Auschwitz. He does not understand the reason for his fate. He doesn't particularly think of himself as Jewish. And his fellow prisoners, who decry his lack of Yiddish, keep telling him, "You are no Jew." In the lowest circle of the Holocaust, György remains an outsider.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Shockingly Mundane
- By D. A. Elliott on 01-13-20
By: Imre Kertész, and others
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Buddenbrooks
- The Decline of a Family
- By: Thomas Mann
- Narrated by: David Rintoul
- Length: 26 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 664
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 599
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 597
First published in 1900, when Thomas Mann was 25, Buddenbrooks is a minutely imagined chronicle of four generations of a North German mercantile family - a work so true to life that it scandalized the author’s former neighbours in his native Lübeck.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Where Have You Been All My Life, Thomas Mann?
- By Virginia Waldron on 03-30-17
By: Thomas Mann
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Blindness
- By: José Saramago
- Narrated by: Jonathan Davis
- Length: 12 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 2,576
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 2,116
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Story4 out of 5 stars 2,119
A city is hit by a sudden and strange epidemic of "white blindness", which spares no one. Authorities confine the blind to an empty mental hospital, but there social conventions quickly crumble and the struggle for survival brings out the worst in people.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Surrealistic
- By Richard Pesavento on 10-04-08
By: José Saramago
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Jack Maggs
- By: Peter Carey
- Narrated by: Steven Crossley
- Length: 13 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 89
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 37
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Story4 out of 5 stars 38
With scars on his back and silver in his pocket, the huge figure of Jack Maggs strides across the rich landscape of 19th century London. As this enigmatic man moves through its streets and houses, his single-minded quest to find his son will engender love, deceit, and vengeance in the lives around him.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Jack Maggs
- By Kathleen on 04-04-05
By: Peter Carey
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In the First Circle
- By: Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Harry T. Willets - translator
- Narrated by: Derek Perkins
- Length: 31 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 549
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 478
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 476
Moscow, Christmas Eve, 1949. The Soviet secret police intercept a call made to the American embassy by a Russian diplomat who promises to deliver secrets about the nascent Soviet Atomic Bomb program. On that same day, a brilliant mathematician is locked away inside a Moscow prison that houses the country's brightest minds. He and his fellow prisoners are charged with using their abilities to sleuth out the caller's identity, and they must choose whether to aid Joseph Stalin's repressive state - or refuse and accept transfer to the Siberian Gulag camps, and almost certain death.
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5 out of 5 stars
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One of the five finest novels written in the 20th Century
- By Ellis D Vener on 04-08-19
By: Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, and others
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Death at La Fenice
- Commissario Brunetti Mysteries, Book 1
- By: Donna Leon
- Narrated by: David Colacci
- Length: 9 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 609
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 538
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 532
During intermission at the famed La Fenice opera house in Venice, Italy, a notoriously difficult and widely disliked German conductor is poisoned—and suspects abound. Guido Brunetti, a native Venetian, sets out to unravel the mystery behind the high-profile murder. To do so, he calls on his knowledge of Venice, its culture, and its dirty politics. Along the way, he finds the crime may have roots going back decades—and that revenge, corruption, and even Italian cuisine may play a role.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Hercule Poirot in Venice...!!!
- By Emil Grancagnolo on 10-09-22
By: Donna Leon
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Except the Dying
- A Murdoch Mystery, Book 1
- By: Maureen Jennings
- Narrated by: David Marantz
- Length: 8 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 302
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 257
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Story4 out of 5 stars 258
In the cold Toronto winter of 1895, the naked body of a servant girl is found frozen in a deserted laneway. The young victim was pregnant when she died. Detective William Murdoch soon discovers that many of those connected with the girl's life have secrets to hide. Was her death on attempt to cover up a scandal in one of the city's influential families?
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1 out of 5 stars
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If you like the show - don't buy
- By Sarah on 06-09-16
By: Maureen Jennings
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Anna of the Five Towns
- By: Arnold Bennett
- Narrated by: Peter Joyce
- Length: 9 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 16
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 15
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 15
Set in stifled, industrial Staffordshire in the late 19th century, against a strong evangelical background, Anna of the Five Towns tells of the courting of hard businessman Ephraim Tellright's daughter by prosperous and accomplished Henry Mynors. As her father's fortune grows, so does Anna understanding. She realises her legacy and responsibility for the possible ruination of her father's tenants, Titus Price and his son, Willie, who also loves her.
By: Arnold Bennett
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Watt
- By: Samuel Beckett
- Narrated by: Dermot Crowley
- Length: 10 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 40
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 33
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Story4 out of 5 stars 33
Watt tells the tale of Mr Knott's servant and his attempts to get to know his master. Watt's mistake is to derive the essence of his master from the accidentals of his being, and his painstakingly logical attempts to 'know' ultimately consign him to the asylum. Itself a critique of error, Watt has previously appeared in editions that are littered with mistakes, both major and minor.
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5 out of 5 stars
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An Exercise
- By jdk on 08-07-21
By: Samuel Beckett
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Dombey and Son
- By: Charles Dickens
- Narrated by: Frederick Davidson
- Length: 36 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 123
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 68
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 66
In this carefully crafted novel, Dickens reveals the complexity of London society in the enterprising 1840s as he takes the listener into the business firm and home of one of its most representative patriarchs, Paul Dombey.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Perfect pair
- By Philip on 03-25-08
By: Charles Dickens
What listeners say about In the Penal Colony
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall2 out of 5 stars
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Performance2 out of 5 stars
- Deede
- 03-06-23
Really bad background music
I could not listen because of repetitive background music. Why was this allowed? This book should be refunded.
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Overall1 out of 5 stars
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Performance3 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Sara Lundquist
- 01-21-23
Could not listen
O the irritating repetitive music in the background RUINS this recording. Reader has a good voice for this story but I could not listen.
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1 person found this helpful