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Rust Belt Boy
- Stories of an American Childhood
- Narrated by: Paul Hertneky
- Length: 7 hrs and 41 mins
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Rust Belt Boy
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These stories are specific to one legendary riverfront plateau and one boy's journey, but are emblematic of immigrant life and blue-collar aspirations during the heyday of American industry and its crash, foreshadowing one of the largest internal migrations in US history.
Approximately six million baby boomers, like the narrator, fled the Rust Belt. Another six million remained and stories of their youth, struggles, and aspirations echo throughout this book. Pittsburgh alone attracts die-hard affinity with its scattered natives.
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- By: Dan Barry
- Narrated by: Fred Sanders
- Length: 9 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 84
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 72
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 73
In the tiny Iowa farm town of Atalissa, dozens of men, all with intellectual disabilities and all from Texas, lived in an old schoolhouse. Before dawn each morning, they were bussed to a nearby processing plant, where they eviscerated turkeys in return for food, lodging, and $65 a month. They lived in near servitude for more than 30 years, enduring increasing neglect, exploitation, and physical and emotional abuse.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Our Brothers' Keepers?
- By Gillian on 12-01-16
By: Dan Barry
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Dreams from My Father
- A Story of Race and Inheritance
- By: Barack Obama
- Narrated by: Barack Obama
- Length: 14 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 527
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 456
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Story5 out of 5 stars 452
In this lyrical, unsentimental, and compelling memoir, the son of a Black African father and a White American mother searches for a workable meaning to his life as a Black American. It begins in New York, where Barack Obama learns that his father - a figure he knows more as a myth than as a man - has been killed in a car accident. This sudden death inspires an emotional odyssey - first to a small town in Kansas, from which he retraces the migration of his mother’s family to Hawaii, and then to Kenya, where he meets the African side of his family.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Powerful
- By Gene R. on 10-26-21
By: Barack Obama
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The Longest Trip Home
- By: John Grogan
- Narrated by: John Grogan
- Length: 10 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 97
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 47
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Story4 out of 5 stars 46
In the highly anticipated follow-up to Marley & Me, John Grogan again works his magic, bringing us the story of what came first. Before there was Marley, there was a gleefully mischievous boy growing up in a devout Catholic home outside Detroit in the 1960s and '70s. Despite his loving parents' best efforts, John's attempts to meet their expectations failed spectacularly.
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4 out of 5 stars
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As real as it gets
- By bclmb on 12-06-08
By: John Grogan
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Street of Eternal Happiness
- Big City Dreams Along a Shanghai Road
- By: Rob Schmitz
- Narrated by: Paul Boehmer
- Length: 12 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 57
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 50
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 50
Modern Shanghai: a global city in the midst of a renaissance, where dreamers arrive each day to partake in a mad torrent of capital, ideas, and opportunity. Marketplace's Rob Schmitz is one of them. He immerses himself in his neighborhood, forging deep relationships with ordinary people who see in the city's sleek skyline a brighter future, and a chance to rewrite their destinies.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Deserving of better audio
- By Rachael on 02-19-18
By: Rob Schmitz
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Something Fierce
- Memoirs of a Revolutionary Daughter
- By: Carmen Aguirre
- Narrated by: Carmen Aguirre
- Length: 9 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 33
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 28
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 27
Carmen Aguirre was six-year-old when she and her family fled to Canada following General Augusto Pinochet’s violent 1973 coup in Chile. She was only eleven-years-old when her mother and stepfather joined the resistance movement and returned to South America, taking Carmen and her sister went with them. As their mother and stepfather set up a safe house for resistance members in La Paz, Bolivia, the girls' own double lives began. At 18, Carmen became a militant herself, plunging further into a world of terror, paranoia and euphoria.
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4 out of 5 stars
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revolutionary read
- By David Brown on 04-05-18
By: Carmen Aguirre
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Fairyland
- A Memoir of My Father
- By: Alysia Abbott
- Narrated by: Alysia Abbott
- Length: 10 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 117
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 107
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 106
A beautiful, vibrant memoir about growing up motherless in 1970s and 80s San Francisco with an openly gay father. After his wife dies in a car accident, bisexual writer and activist Steve Abbott moves with his two-year-old daughter to San Francisco. There they discover a city in the midst of revolution, bustling with gay men in search of liberation - few of whom are raising a child. Steve throws himself into San Francisco's vibrant cultural scene.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Great representation of the time
- By AvidReader22 on 06-07-19
By: Alysia Abbott
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Forgiveness
- A Gift from My Grandparents
- By: Mark Sakamoto
- Narrated by: Geoff Sugiyama
- Length: 7 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 39
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 33
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 32
When the Second World War broke out, Ralph MacLean chose to escape his troubled life on the Magdalen Islands in eastern Canada and volunteer to serve his country overseas. Meanwhile, in Vancouver, Mitsue Sakamoto saw her family and her stable community torn apart after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Admirable progenitors
- By M. D. Baines on 04-24-18
By: Mark Sakamoto
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Love and Other Ways of Dying
- Essays
- By: Michael Paterniti
- Narrated by: Richard Poe
- Length: 14 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 76
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 61
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Story4 out of 5 stars 61
In the 17 wide-ranging essays collected for the first time in Love and Other Ways of Dying, he brings his full literary powers to bear, pondering happiness and grief, memory and the redemptive power of human connection. In the remote Ukranian countryside, Paterniti picks apples (and faces mortality) with a real-life giant; in Nanjing, China, he confronts a distraught jumper on a suicide bridge.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Incredibly intimate voice for humanity
- By Ed Hodges on 01-02-16
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The UnAmericans
- Stories
- By: Molly Antopol
- Narrated by: Jennifer Van Dyck
- Length: 7 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 124
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 111
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Story4 out of 5 stars 111
Again and again, Molly Antopol’s deeply sympathetic characters struggle for footing in an uncertain world, hounded by forces beyond their control. Their voices are intimate and powerful and they resonate with searing beauty. Antopol is a superb young talent, and The UnAmericans will long be remembered for its wit, humanity, and heart.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Sensational stories! Brilliant new author.
- By MidwestGeek on 05-04-14
By: Molly Antopol
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The Ride of Our Lives
- Roadside Lessons of an American Family
- By: Mike Leonard
- Narrated by: Marc Cashman
- Length: 7 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 99
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 42
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 42
Mike Leonard is a lucky man. It’s not everyone who gets parents like Jack and Marge. At 87, Jack is a pathological optimist with an inexhaustible gift of gab. Marge, Jack’s bride of 60 years, though cut from the same rough bolt of Irish immigrant cloth, is his polar opposite - pessimistic and proud of it. What was their son, Mike, thinking when he took a sabbatical from his job with NBC News so he could pile these two world-class originals along with three of his grown kids and a daughter-in-law into a pair of rented RVs and hit the road for a month?
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5 out of 5 stars
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Hilarious!!!
- By TurtlesRMe on 03-06-07
By: Mike Leonard
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Always Running
- La Vida Loca: Gang Days in L.A.
- By: Luis J. Rodriguez
- Narrated by: Luis J. Rodriguez
- Length: 10 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 472
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 416
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 417
By age 12, Luis Rodriguez was a veteran of East L.A. gang warfare. Lured by a seemingly invincible gang culture, he witnessed countless shootings, beatings, and arrests, then watched with increasing fear as that culture claimed friends and family members. Before long, Rodriguez saw a way out of the barrio through education and successfully broke free from years of violence and desperation.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Book for all educators
- By Heather M. Vitz on 03-15-15
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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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The House at Sugar Beach
- A Memoir
- By: Helene Cooper
- Narrated by: Helene Cooper
- Length: 9 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 304
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 186
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 186
At once a deeply personal memoir and an examination of a violent and stratified country, The House at Sugar Beach tells of tragedy, forgiveness, and transcendence with unflinching honesty and a survivor's gentle humor. And at its heart, it is a story of Helene Cooper's long voyage home.
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2 out of 5 stars
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Can't recommend it
- By Taryn on 03-25-16
By: Helene Cooper
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Strong Motion
- By: Jonathan Franzen
- Narrated by: Scott Aiello
- Length: 20 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 220
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 193
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Story4 out of 5 stars 196
Louis Holland arrives in Boston in a spring of ecological upheaval (a rash of earthquakes on the North Shore) and odd luck: the first one kills his grandmother. Louis tries to maintain his independence, but falls in love with a Harvard seismologist whose discoveries about the earthquakes' cause complicate everything.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Compelling Story, Ridiculous Narrator
- By DianeReads on 02-28-16
By: Jonathan Franzen
What listeners say about Rust Belt Boy
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Amazon Customer
- 03-18-18
Great Read. A great depiction of A Pa steel town
Paul H really brings home a story not atypical of many towns that Ambrodge deservably represents. .
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance3 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- ivan
- 11-28-23
The heartfelt memories of a boy who loved his parents, and relatives and townspeople
Loved the story how it traced a towns history and people from its beginning to its peak to its decline yet hope for the future!
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Victoria Sun
- 05-14-16
Fascinating and Charming
A rare look into a world I never knew anything about, full of brilliant scenes and sensual descriptions of one curious boy-then-young-man torn between love and adventure in a tough steel town. The author (and surprisingly good narrator) lays out amazing historical accounts and facts, like that 6 million baby boomers left the Rust Belt, explaining why I know so many people from up there. In short, richly detailed chapters, I was laughing out loud AND getting teary. I almost got busted for listening at work. I'm giving it to everyone I know who wants a real story of what America is all about.
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