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Mother Island
- A Daughter Claims Puerto Rico
- Narrated by: Jamie Figueroa, Kelle Rae Oien
- Length: 10 hrs and 25 mins
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Publisher's summary
A searing memoir that explores the institutions that defined a Puerto Rican woman and what she unlearned to rediscover herself • "A lushly written, deeply felt investigation into the meanings of home, lineage and selfhood."—Melissa Febos, bestselling author of Body Work and Girlhood
Growing up in the Midwest, raised by a Puerto Rican mother who was abandoned by her family, Jamie Figueroa and her sisters were estranged from their culture, consumed by the whiteness that surrounded them. In Mother Island, Figueroa traces her search for identity as shaped by and against a mother who settled into the safety of assimilation. In lyrical, blistering prose, Figueroa recalls a childhood in Ohio in which she was relegated to the background of her mother’s string of failed marriages; her own marriage in her early twenties to a man twice her age; how her work as a licensed massage therapist helped her heal her body trauma; and how becoming a mother has reshaped her relationship to her family and herself. Only as an adult in New Mexico was Figueroa able to forge her own path, using writing to recast her origin story. In a journey that takes her to Puerto Rico and back, Figueroa looks to her ancestors to reimagine her relationship to the past and to her mother’s native island, reaching beyond her own mother into a greater experience of mothering and claiming herself.
Drawing from Puerto Rican folklore and mythology, a literary lineage of women writers of color, and narratives of identity, Figueroa presents a cultural coming-of-age story. Candid and raw, Mother Island gets to the heart of the question: Who do we become when we are no longer trying to be someone else?
Critic reviews
“A lushly written, deeply felt investigation into the meanings of home, lineage and selfhood—Figueroa thoughtfully examines the contours of what is given to us, & what can be chosen.”—Melissa Febos, bestselling author of Body Work and Girlhood
"A memoir of re-assemblage in which fragments of the author's memories from childhood to the present are collaged to create a receptacle in which Figueroa can recollect, recognize and claim what it means to be Boricua. Figueroa's text is both lamentation and reclamation. Upon reaching its final pages, one can only imagine her ancestors standing proud, returning with solemn grace the beauty of her collective acknowledgement."—Myriam J. A. Chancy, author of What Storm, What Thunder and Harvesting Haiti
“Mother Island rings with deep vulnerability and compassion. A beautiful poetic book.”—Tiphanie Yanique, Center for Fiction First Novel Prizewinning author of Love and Drowning
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Story
There are only three real powers in the Spiral: the corporate power of the Trust versus the Union's labor's leverage. Between them the Guild tries to keep everyone's hands above the table. It ain't easy. Branded a Guild deserter, Jal "accidentally" lands a ride on a Guild ship. Helmed by an AI, with a ship's engineer/medic who doesn't see much of a difference between the two jobs, and a "don't make me shoot you" XO, the Guild crew of the Ambit is a little . . . different.
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Very Invested in Characters
- By Devin Rose on 05-01-24
By: L. M. Sagas
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The Riddles of the Sphinx
- Inheriting the Feminist History of the Crossword Puzzle
- By: Anna Shechtman
- Narrated by: Anna Shechtman
- Length: 8 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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The indisputable “queen of crosswords,” Anna Shechtman published her first New York Times puzzle at age nineteen, and later, spearheaded the The New Yorker’s popular crossword section. Working with a medium often criticized as exclusionary, elitist, and out-of-touch, Anna is one of very few women in the field of puzzle making, where she strives to make the everyday diversion more diverse.
By: Anna Shechtman
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If You Can't Take the Heat
- Tales of Food, Feminism, and Fury
- By: Geraldine DeRuiter
- Narrated by: Geraldine DeRuiter
- Length: 9 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
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When celebrity chef Mario Batali sent out an apology letter for the sexual harassment allegations made against him, he had the gall to include a recipe—for cinnamon rolls, of all things. Geraldine DeRuiter decided to make the recipe, and she happened to make food journalism history along with it. Her subsequent essay, with its scathing commentary about the pervasiveness of misogyny in the food world, would be read millions of times. In If You Can’t Take the Heat, DeRuiter shares stories about her shockingly true, painfully funny (and sometimes just painful) adventures in gastronomy.
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Self deprecating humor in its best form.
- By Laurie B. Assid on 05-06-24
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Shakespeare's Sisters
- How Women Wrote the Renaissance
- By: Ramie Targoff
- Narrated by: Hannah Curtis
- Length: 11 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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In an innovative and engaging narrative of everyday life in Shakespeare’s England, Ramie Targoff carries us from the sumptuous coronation of Queen Elizabeth in the mid-sixteenth century into the private lives of four women writers working at a time when women were legally the property of men.
By: Ramie Targoff
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The Morningside
- A Novel
- By: Téa Obreht
- Narrated by: Carlotta Brentan
- Length: 8 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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After being expelled from their ancestral home in a not-so-distant future, Silvia and her mother finally settle at the Morningside, a crumbling luxury tower in a place called Island City where Silvia’s aunt Ena serves as the superintendent. Silvia feels unmoored in her new life because her mother has been so diligently secretive about their family’s past, and because the once-vibrant city where she lives is now half-underwater. Silvia knows almost nothing about the place where she was born and spent her early years, nor does she fully understand why she and her mother had to leave.
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Another Beautiful Tale
- By Francis on 04-20-24
By: Téa Obreht
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One Way Back
- A Memoir
- By: Christine Blasey Ford
- Narrated by: Christine Blasey Ford
- Length: 8 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
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On September 27, 2018, Christine Blasey Ford testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee which was considering the nomination of Judge Brett Kavanaugh to the United States Supreme Court. She described an alleged sexual assault by the Supreme Court nominee that took place at a high school party in the 1980s. Her words and courage on that day provided some of the most credible and unforgettable testimony our country has ever witnessed. In One Way Back, Ford recounts the months she spent trying to get information into the right hands without exposing herself and her family to backlash.
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Must read!
- By Dana on 03-25-24
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Who's Afraid of Gender?
- By: Judith Butler
- Narrated by: Judith Butler
- Length: 11 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
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The aim of Who’s Afraid of Gender? is not to offer a new theory of gender but to examine how “gender” has become a phantasm for emerging authoritarian regimes, fascist formations, and transexclusionary feminists. In their vital, courageous new book, Butler illuminates the concrete ways that this phantasm of “gender” collects and displaces anxieties and fears of destruction.
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Kind, uncompromising and relevant
- By Eleonora Kapow on 04-22-24
By: Judith Butler
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Good Half Gone
- By: Tarryn Fisher
- Narrated by: Tara Sands
- Length: 10 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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Iris narrowly escaped her twin sister’s fate as a teen: abducted in broad daylight and long gone before she could convince the cops there was anything to investigate. With Piper presumed a runaway and no evidence to go on but Iris’s scattered memories, the case quickly goes cold. Ever since that terrible day, Iris’ search for Piper has bordered on obsession. Chasing leads across years and following clues that all seem to point to a single name, Iris does everything she can to get close to the only person who might know the answer to the question that still haunts her: where did Piper go?
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Family connection
- By Kim on 05-08-24
By: Tarryn Fisher
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Annie Bot
- A Novel
- By: Sierra Greer
- Narrated by: Jennifer Jill Araya
- Length: 9 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
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Story
Annie Bot was created to be the perfect girlfriend for her human owner Doug. Designed to satisfy his emotional and physical needs, she has dinner ready for him every night, wears the pert outfits he orders for her, and adjusts her libido to suit his moods. True, she’s not the greatest at keeping Doug’s place spotless, but she’s trying to please him. She’s trying hard.
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Good, but not great
- By Katie Ramey on 03-25-24
By: Sierra Greer
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Expiration Dates
- A Novel
- By: Rebecca Serle
- Narrated by: Julia Whelan
- Length: 7 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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Daphne Bell believes the universe has a plan for her. Every time she meets a new man, she receives a slip of paper with his name and a number on it—the exact amount of time they will be together. The papers told her she’d spend three days with Martin in Paris; five weeks with Noah in San Francisco; and three months with Hugo, her ex-boyfriend turned best friend. Daphne has been receiving the numbered papers for over twenty years, always wondering when there might be one without an expiration. Finally, the night of a blind date at her favorite Los Angeles restaurant, there’s only a name: Jake.
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Slow begining
- By Billy J. Zaleski on 04-03-24
By: Rebecca Serle