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Solstice
- Narrated by: Emily Durante
- Length: 7 hrs and 15 mins
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Solstice
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Publisher's summary
An engrossing early novel from Joyce Carol Oates explores a fraught and perilous relationship between two women.
Originally published in 1985, Solstice is the gripping story of Monica Jensen and Sheila Trask, two young women who are complete opposites yet find themselves irresistibly drawn to each other. Monica is a shy, modest, and recently divorced school teacher while Sheila is a worldly, sophisticated, and nocturnal painter driven by the needs of her art. Over the months, their friendship deepens, first to love and then to a near-fatal obsession.
Engaging, dark, and mysterious, Solstice is Joyce Carol Oates’s psychological masterpiece of friendship and fixation.
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1 out of 5 stars
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THIS IS ABRIDGED
- By J. Flynn on 07-25-16
By: William Styron
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Asylum
- By: Patrick McGrath
- Narrated by: Sir Ian McKellen
- Length: 8 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 2,009
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 1,747
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Story4 out of 5 stars 1,740
In the summer of 1959 Stella Raphael joins her psychiatrist husband, Max, at his new posting - a maximum-security hospital for the criminally insane. Stella soon falls under the spell of Edgar Stark, a brilliant sculptor who has been confined to the hospital for murdering his wife in a psychotic rage. But Stella's knowledge of Edgar's crime is no hindrance to the volcanic attraction that ensues -a passion that will consume Stella's sanity and destroy her and the lives of those around her.
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5 out of 5 stars
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So enjoyed this book!
- By Mebythesea on 10-07-08
By: Patrick McGrath
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The Golden Notebook
- By: Doris Lessing
- Narrated by: Juliet Stevenson
- Length: 27 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 509
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 422
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Story4 out of 5 stars 419
Author Anna Wulf attempts to overcome writer’s block by writing a comprehensive "golden notebook" that draws together the preoccupations of her life, each of which is examined in a different notebook. Anna’s struggle to unify the various strands of her life – emotional, political, and professional – amasses into a fascinating encyclopaedia of female experience in the ‘50s.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Transcendent narration of a masterpiece.
- By @vmarinelli on 07-03-12
By: Doris Lessing
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The Razor's Edge
- By: W. Somerset Maugham
- Narrated by: Michael Page
- Length: 11 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 965
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 851
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 842
The Great War changed everything and everyone, and Larry Darrell is no exception. Though his physical wounds from the war heal, his spirit is changed almost beyond recognition. He leaves his betrothed, the beautiful and devoted Isabel; studies philosophy and religion in Paris; lives as a monk, and witnesses the exotic hardships of Spanish life. All of life that he can find - from an Indian Ashrama to labor in a coal mine - becomes Larry's spiritual experiment as he spurns the comfort and privilege of the Roaring 20s.
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4 out of 5 stars
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An Classic of Love and the Desire for Meaning
- By Eric on 01-06-17
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Of Human Bondage
- By: W. Somerset Maugham
- Narrated by: Charlton Griffin
- Length: 28 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 408
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 367
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 363
Of Human Bondage is one of the greatest novels of modern times, and it is certainly Maugham's greatest achievement. It was published in 1914, when Maugham was at the height of his creative powers. The story concerns Philip Carey, afflicted at birth with a club foot, and his passionate search for truth in a cruel world. We follow his growth to manhood, his educational progress, his first loves, and the wrenching tragedies and disappointments that life has in store for him. In some of the finest prose of the 20th century, Maugham has presented us with the timeless story of one man's search for the meaning of life.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Greatly Unsettling
- By Michael on 10-04-14
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Stoner
- By: John Williams
- Narrated by: Robin Field
- Length: 9 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 4,241
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 3,760
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 3,751
William Stoner is born at the end of the 19th century into a dirt-poor Missouri farming family. Sent to the state university to study agronomy, he instead falls in love with English literature and embraces a scholar's life, far different from the hardscrabble existence he has known. And yet as the years pass, Stoner encounters a succession of disappointments.
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5 out of 5 stars
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A story of sadness and serenity
- By Anton on 10-13-12
By: John Williams
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Justine
- The Alexandria Quartet, Book 1
- By: Lawrence Durrell
- Narrated by: Nicholas Boulton
- Length: 8 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 33
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 26
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Story4 out of 5 stars 26
Justine is the first volume in the Alexandria Quartet, four interlinked novels set in the sensuous, hot environment of Alexandria just before the Second World War. Within this polyglot setting of richly idiosyncratic characters is Justine, wild and intense, wife to the wealthy businessman Nessim, a Mari complaisant. Her emotional and sexual wildness fuels a highly charged atmosphere.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Too highly regarded by critics?
- By David P. Wingert on 02-11-23
By: Lawrence Durrell
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Lolita
- By: Vladimir Nabokov
- Narrated by: Jeremy Irons
- Length: 11 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 11,155
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 9,391
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 9,326
Awe and exhilaration—along with heartbreak and mordant wit—abound in Lolita, which tells the story of the aging Humbert Humbert's obsession for the nymphet Dolores Haze. Lolita is also the story of a hypercivilized European colliding with the cheerful barbarism of postwar America.
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5 out of 5 stars
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An Absolutely Gorgeous Audible Experience
- By Jim on 10-26-05
By: Vladimir Nabokov
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The Museum of Innocence
- By: Orhan Pamuk, Maureen Freely (translator)
- Narrated by: John Lee
- Length: 20 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 315
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 235
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Story4 out of 5 stars 235
Kemal, scion of one of the city's wealthiest families, is about to become engaged to Sibel, daughter of another prominent family, when he encounters Füsun, a beautiful shopgirl and a distant relation. Once the long-lost cousins violate the code of virginity, a rift begins to open between Kemal and the world of the Westernized Istanbul bourgeosie - a world, as he lovingly describes it, with opulent parties and clubs, society gossip, picnics, and mansions on the Bosphorus, infused with the melancholy of decay.
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5 out of 5 stars
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one of the very best I've ever heard
- By Rebecca Lindroos on 03-06-10
By: Orhan Pamuk, and others
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Up a Road Slowly
- By: Irene Hunt
- Narrated by: Jaselyn Blanchard
- Length: 4 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 113
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 105
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 102
Julie would remember her happy days at Aunt Cordelia’s forever. Running through the spacious rooms, singing on rainy nights in front of the blazing fireplace. There were rides in the woods on Peter the Great, the races with Danny Trevort. Maybe best of all were the precious moments alone in her room at night, gazing at the sea of stars. But there was sadness too - the painful jealousy Julie felt after her sister got married, the tragic death of a schoolmate, and the bitter disappointment of her first love. Sometimes it all seemed like too much to handle.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Coming of age in mid century
- By Mary A. Kozy on 01-17-21
By: Irene Hunt
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Herzog
- By: Saul Bellow
- Narrated by: Malcolm Hillgartner
- Length: 15 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 371
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 287
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Story4 out of 5 stars 289
Winner of the National Book Award when it was first published in 1964, Herzog traces five days in the life of a failed academic whose wife has recently left him for his best friend. Through the device of letter writing, Herzog movingly portrays both the internal life of its eponymous hero and the complexity of modern consciousness.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Grows Within You
- By Chris Reich on 08-06-11
By: Saul Bellow
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The Book Club
- By: Mary Alice Monroe
- Narrated by: Deanna Hurst
- Length: 14 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 317
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 270
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Story4 out of 5 stars 273
Discover this moving story of five remarkable friends as Mary Alice Monroe, the New York Times bestselling author of The Beach House, explores the power of friendship with tenderness and honesty.
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1 out of 5 stars
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Beware: Title Is Deceptive !!
- By Fran Foster on 02-07-16
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The Berlin Stories
- By: Christopher Isherwood
- Narrated by: Michael York
- Length: 2 hrs and 58 mins
- Abridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 272
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 224
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Story4 out of 5 stars 223
Christopher Isherwood's dramatized memoirs are prophetic images of a country preparing itself to embrace Hitler and the Third Reich. The Berlin Stories includes two works published together: The Last of Mr. Norris and Goodbye to Berlin. These modern classics reveal in poignant detail the tragedy of mid-20th-century Germany.
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2 out of 5 stars
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Nothing happens...
- By Tim Byers on 02-01-07