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Memoirs of a Polar Bear
- Narrated by: Christa Lewis, Paul Woodson
- Length: 8 hrs and 52 mins
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Memoirs of a Polar Bear
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Publisher's summary
Memoirs of a Polar Bear has in spades what Rivka Galchen hailed in the New Yorker as "Yoko Tawada's magnificent strangeness".
Three generations (grandmother, mother, son) of polar bears are famous as both circus performers and writers in East Germany. They are polar bears who move in human society, stars of the ring and of the literary world. In chapter one, the grandmother matriarch in the Soviet Union accidentally writes a best-selling autobiography. In chapter two, Tosca, her daughter (born in Canada, where her mother had emigrated) moves to the DDR and takes a job in the circus. Her son - the last of their line - is Knut, born in chapter three in a Leipzig zoo, but raised by a human keeper in relatively happy circumstances in the Berlin zoo, until his keeper, Matthias, is taken away.
Happy or sad, each bear writes a story, enjoying both celebrity and "the intimacy of being alone with my pen."
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-
Story3.5 out of 5 stars 91
Fairy-tale romances end with a wedding and the fairy tales don't get complicated. In this book, celebrated writer Mr. Fox can't stop himself from killing off the heroines of his novels, and neither can his wife, Daphne. It's not until Mary, his muse, comes to life and transforms him from author into subject that his story begins to unfold differently....
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2 out of 5 stars
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A Great Novel, just Poor for Audio
- By James A. Dittes on 08-13-16
By: Helen Oyeyemi
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Three Daughters of Eve
- By: Elif Shafak
- Narrated by: Alix Dunmore
- Length: 10 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 220
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 201
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Story4 out of 5 stars 202
Set across Istanbul and Oxford, from the 1980s to the present day, Three Daughters of Eve is a sweeping tale of faith and friendship, tradition and modernity, love and an unexpected betrayal. Peri, a wealthy Turkish housewife and mother, is on her way to a dinner party at a seaside mansion in Istanbul when a beggar snatches her handbag. As she wrestles to get it back, a photograph falls to the ground - an old polaroid of three young women and their university professor.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Review 3 daughters of Eve
- By CA on 04-28-18
By: Elif Shafak
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Russian Winter
- A Novel
- By: Daphne Kalotay
- Narrated by: Kathleen Gati
- Length: 14 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 166
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 116
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Story4 out of 5 stars 114
In Russian Winter, the beautiful debut novel by critically acclaimed writer Daphne Kalotay, a famed ballerina’s jewelry auction in Boston reveals long-held secrets of love and family, friendship and rivalry, harkening back to Stalinist Russia. Called “tender, passionate, and moving” by Jenna Blum, the New York Times bestselling author of Those Who Save Us, Russian Winter is a perfect choice for fans of the novels of Debra Dean (The Madonnas of Leningrad), Ann Patchett (Bel Canto), and Ian McEwan (Atonement).
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5 out of 5 stars
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Read this review; Sophisticated and wonderful!
- By Cookie on 01-15-12
By: Daphne Kalotay
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Wild Lavender
- By: Belinda Alexandra
- Narrated by: Kate Hood
- Length: 20 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 397
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 334
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 332
Simone Fleurier is wrenched from her home on a Provencal lavender farm at the age of 14 after the accidental death of her father. Forced to become a maid at the boarding house of her Aunt Augustine in Marseilles, Simone's life is hard and impoverished. But one of her aunt's boarders, the beautiful Camille Casal, a star at the local music hall, gives Simone a dream: that one day she too will be a famous singer and dancer.
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5 out of 5 stars
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An Extrodinary Story
- By Wade on 08-16-08
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Stories
- All-New Tales
- By: Neil Gaiman - author/editor, Al Sarrantonio - editor, Joe Hill, and others
- Narrated by: Anne Bobby, Jonathan Davis, Katherine Kellgren, and others
- Length: 18 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 880
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 687
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Story4 out of 5 stars 687
The best stories pull readers in and keep them turning the pages, eager to discover more—to find the answer to the question: "And then what happened?" The true hallmark of great literature is great imagination, and as Neil Gaiman and Al Sarrantonio prove with this outstanding collection, when it comes to great fiction, all genres are equal.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Something for Everyone
- By Nicole on 05-24-17
By: Neil Gaiman - author/editor, and others
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Priestdaddy
- A Memoir
- By: Patricia Lockwood
- Narrated by: Patricia Lockwood
- Length: 10 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 941
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 848
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Story4 out of 5 stars 846
Father Greg Lockwood is unlike any Catholic priest you have ever met - a man who lounges in boxer shorts, who loves action movies, and whose constant jamming on the guitar reverberates "like a whole band dying in a plane crash in 1972". His daughter is an irreverent poet who long ago left the church's country. When an unexpected crisis leads her and her husband to move back into her parents' rectory, their two worlds collide.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Terrible narration--read, don't listen
- By Penelope on 08-06-17
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The Wife
- A Novel
- By: Meg Wolitzer
- Narrated by: Dawn Harvey
- Length: 8 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 639
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 569
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Story4 out of 5 stars 567
The moment Joan Castleman decides to leave her husband, they are 35,000 feet above the ocean on a flight to Helsinki. Joan's husband, Joseph, is one of America's preeminent novelists, about to receive a prestigious international award, and Joan, who has spent 40 years subjugating her own literary talents to fan the flames of his career, has finally decided to stop.
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3 out of 5 stars
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A bit of a downer
- By Jody Cox on 08-01-18
By: Meg Wolitzer
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Honor
- By: Elif Shafak
- Narrated by: Mozhan Marno, Piter Marik
- Length: 12 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 109
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 94
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 91
An honor killing shatters and transforms the lives of Turkish immigrants in 1970s London. Internationally best-selling Turkish author Elif Shafak’s new novel is a dramatic tale of families, love, and misunderstandings that follows the destinies of twin sisters born in a Kurdish village. While Jamila stays to become a midwife, Pembe follows her Turkish husband, Adem, to London, where they hope to make new lives for themselves and their children. In London, they face a choice: stay loyal to the old traditions or try their best to fit in.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Complex but Compelling
- By Cariola on 04-14-13
By: Elif Shafak
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A Tale of Love and Darkness
- By: Amos Oz
- Narrated by: Stefan Rudnicki
- Length: 23 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 332
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 292
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 292
It is the story of a boy growing up in the war-torn Jerusalem of the 40s and 50s in a small apartment crowded with books in 12 languages and relatives speaking nearly as many. His mother and father, both wonderful people, were ill-suited to each other. When Oz was 12 and a half years old, his mother committed suicide - a tragedy that was to change his life. He leaves the constraints of the family and the community of dreamers, scholars, and failed businessmen to join a kibbutz.
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1 out of 5 stars
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His life was interesting, but not his memoir
- By DR Harle on 01-27-19
By: Amos Oz
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Middle C
- By: William H. Gass
- Narrated by: Jeremy Arthur
- Length: 16 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 43
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 38
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Story4 out of 5 stars 38
Gass’ new novel moves from World War II Europe to a small town in postwar Ohio. In a series of variations, Gass gives us a mosaic of a life - futile, comic, anarchic - arranged in an array of vocabularies, altered rhythms, forms and tones, and broken pieces with music as both theme and structure, set in the key of middle C. It begins in Graz, Austria, 1938. Joseph Skizzen's father, pretending to be Jewish, leaves his country for England with his wife and two children to avoid any connection with the Nazis, who he foresees will soon take over his homeland....
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4 out of 5 stars
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All the world was a stage. But not for all the wor
- By Darwin8u on 06-07-14
By: William H. Gass
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The Vine of Desire
- By: Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
- Narrated by: Julia Whelan
- Length: 11 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 99
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 92
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Story4 out of 5 stars 92
Anju and Sudha formed an astounding, almost psychic connection during their childhood in India. When Anju invites Sudha, a single mother in Calcutta, to come live with her and her husband, Sunil, in California, Sudha foolishly accepts, knowing full well that Sunil has long desired her. As Sunil's attraction rises to the surface, the trio must struggle to make sense of the freedoms of America - and of the ties that bind them to India and to one another.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Vine of desire
- By Mz Shantay on 03-27-21
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Amulet
- By: Roberto Bolaño, Chris Andrews - translator
- Narrated by: Adriana Sananes
- Length: 4 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 46
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 36
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Story4 out of 5 stars 35
A tour de force, Amulet is a highly charged first-person, semi-hallucinatory novel that embodies in one woman's voice the melancholy and violent recent history of Latin America. Amulet is a monologue, like Bolaño's acclaimed debut in English, By Night in Chile. The speaker is Auxilio Lacouture, a Uruguayan woman who moved to Mexico in the 1960s, becoming the "Mother of Mexican Poetry", hanging out with the young poets in the cafés and bars of the University.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Read The Savage Detectives first
- By Alicia Grega on 12-05-13
By: Roberto Bolaño, and others
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The Lonely Hearts Hotel
- A Novel
- By: Heather O'Neill
- Narrated by: Julia Whelan
- Length: 12 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 253
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 218
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Story4 out of 5 stars 218
From the author of When We Lost Our Heads, a spellbinding story about two gifted orphans - in love with each other since they can remember - whose childhood talents allow them to rewrite their future. The Lonely Hearts Hotel is a love story with the power of legend. An unparalleled tale of charismatic pianos, invisible dance partners, radicalized chorus girls, drug-addicted musicians, brooding clowns, and an underworld whose economy hinges on the price of a kiss. In a landscape like this, it takes great creative gifts to thwart one’s origins.
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3 out of 5 stars
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IMPECCABLE BEAUTIFUL Writing, Interesting Story
- By Jordyn on 05-24-17
By: Heather O'Neill
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Silver Wattle
- By: Belinda Alexandra
- Narrated by: Caroline Lee
- Length: 16 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 441
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 395
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 385
In fear for their lives after the sudden death of their mother, Adéla and Klára must flee Prague to find refuge with their uncle in Australia. Later, Adéla becomes a film director at a time when the local industry is starting to feel the competition from Hollywood. But even while success is imminent, the issues of family and an impossible love are never far away.
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1 out of 5 stars
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Groan, Snore and Wince!
- By OrangeWisteria on 02-12-12
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House of Meetings
- By: Martin Amis
- Narrated by: Jeff Woodman
- Length: 7 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 56
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 47
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Story4 out of 5 stars 46
There were conjugal visits in the slave camps of the USSR. Valiant women would travel continental distances, over weeks and months, in the hope of spending a night with their particular enemy of the people, in the House of Meetings. The consequences of these liaisons were almost invariably tragic. House of Meetings is about one such liaison.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Martin Amis at the height of his powers; wonderous
- By Todd on 06-16-15
By: Martin Amis
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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
What listeners say about Memoirs of a Polar Bear
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
- JayTeee
- 10-16-18
Beautifully crafted
A rare find and quite possibly one of my top picks for the year.
This novel is deeply symbolic and portrays complex processes through an innocent soul's language. What I admire the most is the disintegration of the elements of traditional English literature. This is largely the most common critique of this novel (for some reason). True, it is not a tactfully placed story arch and dramatized climax embellished with sprinklings of foreshadow and metaphors. But I think you should appreciate that aspect most of all as the overarching theme is the celebration of Eastern culture in its attempts to interact with Western views. Rejection of this novel for its dissociation of "normal" is only natural to traditional western readers.
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