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Tar Baby
- Narrated by: Desiree Coleman
- Length: 11 hrs and 26 mins
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Tar Baby
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MORRISON AT HER MOST COMPLEX
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2 out of 5 stars
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Maybe a beautiful story, This author should never narrate
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not a novel, but a collection of short stories
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Jacob is an Anglo-Dutch trader and adventurer, with a small holding in the harsh north. Despite his distaste for dealing in "flesh," he takes a small slave girl in part payment for a bad debt from a plantation owner in Catholic Maryland. This is Florens, "with the hands of a slave and the feet of a Portuguese lady." Florens looks for love, first from Lina, an older servant woman at her new master's house, but later from a handsome blacksmith, an African, never enslaved.
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Great book
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Milkman Dead was born shortly after a neighborhood eccentric hurled himself off a rooftop in a vain attempt at flight. For the rest of his life he, too, will be trying to fly. As Morrison follows Milkman from his rustbelt city to the place of his family’s origins, she introduces an entire cast of strivers and seeresses, liars and assassins, the inhabitants of a fully realized Black world.
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2 out of 5 stars
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Maybe a beautiful story, This author should never narrate
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Their Eyes Were Watching God, an American classic, is the luminous and haunting novel about Janie Crawford, a Southern Black woman in the 1930s, whose journey from a free-spirited girl to a woman of independence and substance has inspired writers and readers for close to 70 years.
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perfection
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Sethe was born a slave and escaped to Ohio, but eighteen years later she is still not free. Sethe has too many memories of Sweet Home, the beautiful farm where so many hideous things happened. And Sethe’s new home is haunted by the ghost of her baby, who died nameless and whose tombstone is engraved with a single word: Beloved.
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2 out of 5 stars
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Nel and Sula's devotion is fierce enough to withstand bullies and the burden of a dreadful secret. It endures even after Nel has grown up to be a pillar of the black community and Sula has become a pariah. But their friendship ends in an unforgivable betrayal—or does it end? Terrifying, comic, ribald and tragic, Sula is a work that overflows with life.
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In the winter of 1926, when everybody everywhere sees nothing but good things ahead, Joe Trace, middle-aged door-to-door salesman of Cleopatra beauty products, shoots his teenage lover to death. At the funeral, Joe’s wife, Violet, attacks the girl’s corpse. This novel “transforms a familiar refrain of jilted love into a bold, sustaining time of self-knowledge and discovery. Its rhythms are infectious” (People).
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1 out of 5 stars
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The audio is not the same as the book
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At the center: a young woman who calls herself Bride, whose stunning blue-black skin is only one element of her beauty, her boldness and confidence, her success in life, but which caused her light-skinned mother to deny her even the simplest forms of love. There is Booker, the man Bride loves, and loses to anger.
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God Help Us All
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 104
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Morrison shows how much the themes of freedom and individualism, manhood and innocence, depended on the existence of a black population that was manifestly unfree--and that came to serve white authors as embodiments of their own fears and desires. According to the Chicago Tribune, Morrison "reimagines and remaps the possibility of America." Her brilliant discussions of the "Africanist" presence in the fiction of Poe, Melville, Cather, and Hemingway leads to a dramatic reappraisal of the essential characteristics of our literary tradition.
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My goodness..get ready to be challenged
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The Source of Self-Regard
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 188
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 150
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Arguably the most celebrated and revered writer of our time now gives us a new nonfiction collection - a rich gathering of her essays, speeches, and meditations on society, culture, and art, spanning four decades.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Refreshing thoughts
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 187
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 166
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 163
In this 1983 short story - the only short story Morrison ever wrote - we meet Twyla and Roberta, who have known each other since they were eight years old and spent four months together as roommates in St. Bonaventure shelter. Inseparable then, they lose touch as they grow older, only later to find each other again at a diner, a grocery store, and again at a protest. Seemingly at opposite ends of every problem, and at each other's throats each time they meet, the two women still cannot deny the deep bond their shared experience has forged between them.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Read the introduction last
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By: Toni Morrison, and others
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I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 8,327
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 8,294
Sent by their mother to live with their devout, self-sufficient grandmother in a small Southern town, Maya and her brother, Bailey, endure the ache of abandonment and the prejudice of the local “powhitetrash.” At eight years old, Maya is attacked by a man many times her age - and has to live with the consequences for a lifetime. But years later, she learns about love for herself and the kindness of others, her own strong spirit, and the ideas of great authors.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Emotional & Powerful
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Having just celebrated her 26th birthday in 1976 California, Dana, an African-American woman, is suddenly and inexplicably wrenched through time into antebellum Maryland. After saving a drowning White boy there, she finds herself staring into the barrel of a shotgun and is transported back to the present just in time to save her life. During numerous such time-defying episodes with the same young man, she realizes she's been given a challenge.
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5 out of 5 stars
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The Past of Slavery Still Moves and Wounds Us
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The Evening and the Morning
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It is 997 CE, the end of the Dark Ages. England is facing attacks from the Welsh in the west and the Vikings in the east. Those in power bend justice according to their will, regardless of ordinary people and often in conflict with the king. Without a clear rule of law, chaos reigns. In these turbulent times, three characters find their lives intertwined.
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3 out of 5 stars
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I was really waiting for this book!
- By Firebolt on 09-20-20
By: Ken Follett
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Virgins
- An Outlander Short
- By: Diana Gabaldon
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 3,024
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 2,676
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 2,663
Mourning the death of his father and gravely injured at the hands of the English, Jamie Fraser finds himself running with a band of mercenaries in the French countryside, where he reconnects with his old friend, Ian Murray. Both are nursing wounds, both have good reason to stay out of Scotland, and both are still virgins despite several opportunities to remedy that deplorable situation with ladies of easy virtue.
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2 out of 5 stars
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Don't expect an in depth story
- By ELZIE B HICKERSON on 10-30-16
By: Diana Gabaldon
Publisher's summary
A ravishingly beautiful and emotionally incendiary reinvention of the love story by the legendary Nobel Prize winner
Jadine Childs is a Black fashion model with a white patron, a white boyfriend, and a coat made out of ninety perfect sealskins. Son is a Black fugitive who embodies everything she loathes and desires. As Morrison follows their affair, which plays out from the Caribbean to Manhattan and the deep South, she charts all the nuances of obligation and betrayal between Blacks and whites, masters and servants, and men and women.
Critic reviews
1993, Nobel Prize, Winner
“Deeply perceptive. . . . Return[s] risk and mischief to the contemporary American novel.” (John Irving, The New York Times Book Review)
“Arresting images, fierce intelligence, poetic language . . . One becomes entranced by Toni Morrison’s story.” (The Washington Post)
Featured Article: Classic Literature from Black Writers, Performed by Black Narrators
Despite the many great works of literature by great Black writers, Black voices have had a hard time entering "the canon." Worse, there have been times when Black words were miscast and read by narrators who didn't connect with the spirit of the authors. To help rectify this, we offer our careful selection of classics by Black authors performed by gifted Black actors that truly deserve to be recognized, celebrated, and savored.
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In Paradise - her first novel since she was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature - Toni Morrison gives us a bravura performance. As the book begins deep in Oklahoma early one morning in 1976, nine men from Ruby (pop. 360), in defense of "the one all-black town worth the pain", assault the nearby Convent and the women in it. From the town's ancestral origins in 1890 to the fateful day of the assault, Paradise tells the story of a people ever mindful of the relationship between their spectacular history and a void.
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5 out of 5 stars
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MORRISON AT HER MOST COMPLEX
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 359
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Children Playing Before a Statue of Hercules is a collection of short stories, some classic, others impending, selected and introduced by David Sedaris.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Great stories but only 5 of 17 are included
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The Vine of Desire
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 101
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 94
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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
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Caramelo
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 77
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 64
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Lala Reyes’ grandmother is descended from a family of renowned rebozo, or shawl-makers. The striped (caramelo) is the most beautiful of all, and the one that makes its way, like the family history it has come to represent, into Lala’s possession. The novel opens with the Reyes’ annual car trip - a caravan overflowing with children, laughter, and quarrels - from Chicago to “the other side”, Mexico City. It is there, each year, that Lala hears her family’s stories, separating the truth from the “healthy lies” that have ricocheted from one generation to the next.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Love, family, history, and fantasy, Caramelo
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 192
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Story4 out of 5 stars 191
When a 70-year-old woman finds a five-year-old girl abandoned on her doorstep, she is thrust into a sorrowful past that can only be conquered with the help of the girl who opened her memory - the very girl she is trying to save. This first novel, according to author Jacquelyn Mitchard, is one of "exquisite power, honesty, and conviction...quite nearly without flaws."
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1 out of 5 stars
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filthy language and violent content
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The Star Side of Bird Hill
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 89
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Two sisters, ages 10 and 16, are exiled from Brooklyn to Bird Hill in Barbados, after their mother can no longer care for them. The young Phaedra and her older sister, Dionne, live, for the summer of 1989, with their grandmother, Hyacinth, a midwife and practitioner of the local spiritual practice of obeah. Dionne spends the summer in search of love, testing her grandmother's limits, and wanting to go home. Phaedra explores Bird Hill, where her family has lived for generations.
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5 out of 5 stars
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My absolute favorite book of all time
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 246
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In Paradise - her first novel since she was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature - Toni Morrison gives us a bravura performance. As the book begins deep in Oklahoma early one morning in 1976, nine men from Ruby (pop. 360), in defense of "the one all-black town worth the pain", assault the nearby Convent and the women in it. From the town's ancestral origins in 1890 to the fateful day of the assault, Paradise tells the story of a people ever mindful of the relationship between their spectacular history and a void.
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5 out of 5 stars
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4 out of 5 stars
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Great stories but only 5 of 17 are included
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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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Caramelo
- By: Sandra Cisneros
- Narrated by: Sandra Cisneros
- Length: 15 hrs and 57 mins
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 77
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 64
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 63
Lala Reyes’ grandmother is descended from a family of renowned rebozo, or shawl-makers. The striped (caramelo) is the most beautiful of all, and the one that makes its way, like the family history it has come to represent, into Lala’s possession. The novel opens with the Reyes’ annual car trip - a caravan overflowing with children, laughter, and quarrels - from Chicago to “the other side”, Mexico City. It is there, each year, that Lala hears her family’s stories, separating the truth from the “healthy lies” that have ricocheted from one generation to the next.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Love, family, history, and fantasy, Caramelo
- By Michele on 08-07-20
By: Sandra Cisneros
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Rush Home Road
- By: Lori Lansens
- Narrated by: Ruby Dee
- Length: 6 hrs and 27 mins
- Abridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 253
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 192
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Story4 out of 5 stars 191
When a 70-year-old woman finds a five-year-old girl abandoned on her doorstep, she is thrust into a sorrowful past that can only be conquered with the help of the girl who opened her memory - the very girl she is trying to save. This first novel, according to author Jacquelyn Mitchard, is one of "exquisite power, honesty, and conviction...quite nearly without flaws."
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1 out of 5 stars
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filthy language and violent content
- By Anna on 12-16-11
By: Lori Lansens
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The Star Side of Bird Hill
- By: Naomi Jackson
- Narrated by: Robin Miles
- Length: 7 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 81
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Story4 out of 5 stars 81
Two sisters, ages 10 and 16, are exiled from Brooklyn to Bird Hill in Barbados, after their mother can no longer care for them. The young Phaedra and her older sister, Dionne, live, for the summer of 1989, with their grandmother, Hyacinth, a midwife and practitioner of the local spiritual practice of obeah. Dionne spends the summer in search of love, testing her grandmother's limits, and wanting to go home. Phaedra explores Bird Hill, where her family has lived for generations.
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5 out of 5 stars
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My absolute favorite book of all time
- By Eme on 07-16-15
By: Naomi Jackson
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This Side of the Sky
- By: Elyse Singleton
- Narrated by: Myra Taylor, Sharon Washington, Richard Ferrone
- Length: 11 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 50
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 45
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 45
Award-winning journalist Elyse Singleton delivers what Essence calls “a gem - the perfect book to curl up with.”
Best friends Lilian and Myraleen, two African American women from rural Mississippi, travel to Europe during World War II to act as members of the Women’s Army Corps. During this time of segregation and destruction, both women discover love and heartbreak, triumph and defeat.
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5 out of 5 stars
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A Breath of Fresh Air
- By Adina Andreu on 07-19-12
By: Elyse Singleton
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Texas Rich
- By: Fern Michaels
- Narrated by: Erin Yuen
- Length: 25 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 236
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 204
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 204
Young Billie Ames naively fell for the exciting pilot Moss Coleman at the Philadelphia Navy Yard during World War II. Within a few months, she was pregnant, married, and traveling across the country to Austin...to the 250,000-acre spread known as Sunbridge and into the tantalizing world of the Texas rich. In a vast land dominated by the industrious Colemans, Billie fights to maintain control of her life and her marriage.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Awful Southern Accent
- By Tina Peters on 03-24-16
By: Fern Michaels
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The Lost Family
- A Novel
- By: Jenna Blum
- Narrated by: Will Damron
- Length: 14 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 101
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 93
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Story4 out of 5 stars 92
In 1965 Manhattan, patrons flock to Masha’s to savor its brisket bourguignon and impeccable service and to admire its dashing owner and head chef Peter Rashkin, the most eligible bachelor in town. But Peter does not care for the parade of eligible women who come to the restaurant hoping to catch his eye. Running Masha’s consumes him, as does his terrible guilt over surviving the horrors of the Nazi death camp while his wife, Masha - the restaurant’s namesake - and two young daughters perished. Then exquisitely beautiful June Bouquet, an up-and-coming young model, appears at the restaurant, piercing Peter’s guard.
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5 out of 5 stars
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STIMULATES THE HEART, MIND AND IMAGINATION
- By Miss Manners on 07-01-18
By: Jenna Blum
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Carolina Moon
- By: Nora Roberts
- Narrated by: Dean Robertson
- Length: 13 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 2,510
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 2,237
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 2,241
Tory Bodeen grew up in a run-down house where her father ruled with an iron fist and a leather belt - and where her dreams and talents had no room to flourish. Her one escape was her neighbor Hope, who lived in the big house just a short skip away, and whose friendship allowed Tory to be something she wasn’t allowed to be at home: a child. Then Hope was brutally murdered, and everything fell apart.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Good and Bad
- By paula lewis on 06-07-09
By: Nora Roberts
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Plantation
- A Lowcountry Tale
- By: Dorothea Benton Frank
- Narrated by: Susie Breck
- Length: 6 hrs and 2 mins
- Abridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 463
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 393
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 390
When Caroline Wimbley Levine learns that her mother, Miss Lavinia, has supposedly gone mad, she leaves the big city bustle of Manhattan and returns to Tall Pines Plantation. Caroline originally left Tall Pines to escape her feisty, eccentric mother and her drunken brother, Trip. When Miss Lavinia dies, Caroline is forced to come to terms with her family's troubled history as well as her failing relationship with her husband.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Abridged!!
- By Teresa on 04-18-16
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Homesick for Another World
- Stories
- By: Ottessa Moshfegh
- Narrated by: Alyssa Bresnahan, Richard Poe
- Length: 8 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 296
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 262
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Story4 out of 5 stars 262
There's something eerily unsettling about Ottessa Moshfegh's stories, something almost dangerous, while also being delightful and even laugh-out-loud funny. Her characters are all unsteady on their feet in one way or another; they all yearn for connection and betterment, though each in very different ways, but they are often tripped up by their own baser impulses and existential insecurities.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Funny, Dynamic Writing
- By Sofia Macht on 06-13-18
By: Ottessa Moshfegh
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Sula
- By: Toni Morrison
- Narrated by: Toni Morrison
- Length: 5 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 2,079
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 1,704
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 1,700
Nel and Sula's devotion is fierce enough to withstand bullies and the burden of a dreadful secret. It endures even after Nel has grown up to be a pillar of the black community and Sula has become a pariah. But their friendship ends in an unforgivable betrayal—or does it end? Terrifying, comic, ribald and tragic, Sula is a work that overflows with life.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Good against evil and a riotous story to boot
- By Karen on 04-11-11
By: Toni Morrison
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The Visiting Privilege
- New and Collected Stories
- By: Joy Williams
- Narrated by: Richard Powers, Emily Woo Zeller, Elisabeth Rodgers, and others
- Length: 20 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 48
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 42
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Story4 out of 5 stars 41
Joy Williams has been celebrated as a master of the short story for four decades, her renown passing from one generation to the next even in the shifting landscape of contemporary writing. And at long last the incredible scope of her singular achievement is put on display: 33 stories drawn from three much-lauded collections and another 13 appearing here for the first time in book form.
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2 out of 5 stars
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I sure tried.
- By A.C. CALLOWAY on 01-28-24
By: Joy Williams
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The Blind Assassin
- By: Margaret Atwood
- Narrated by: Margot Dionne
- Length: 18 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 2,087
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 1,397
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Story4 out of 5 stars 1,390
For the past twenty-five years, Margaret Atwood has written works of striking originality and imagination. In The Blind Assassin, she stretches the limits of her accomplishments as never before, creating a novel that is entertaining and profoundly serious. The novel opens with these simple, resonant words: "Ten days after the war ended, my sister drove a car off the bridge." They are spoken by Iris, whose terse account of her sister Laura's death in 1945 is followed by an inquest report proclaiming the death accidental.
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1 out of 5 stars
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Good book, TERRIBLE audio!
- By Whitney on 04-27-09
By: Margaret Atwood
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Mustique Island
- A Novel
- By: Sarah McCoy
- Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell
- Length: 10 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall3.5 out of 5 stars 176
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 149
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Story3.5 out of 5 stars 150
It’s January 1972 but the sun is white hot when Willy May Michael’s boat first kisses the dock of Mustique Island. Tucked into the southernmost curve of the Caribbean, Mustique is a private island that has become a haven for the wealthy and privileged. Its owner is the eccentric British playboy Colin Tennant, who is determined to turn this speck of white sand into a luxurious neo-colonial retreat for his rich friends and into a royal court in exile for the Queen’s rebellious sister, Princess Margaret.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Vivid Imagery
- By GeauxGetLit on 07-24-22
By: Sarah McCoy
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Mr. Fox
- A Novel
- By: Helen Oyeyemi
- Narrated by: Carol Boyd
- Length: 8 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall3.5 out of 5 stars 104
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 91
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Story3.5 out of 5 stars 93
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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Trading Dreams at Midnight
- By: Diane McKinney-Whetstone
- Narrated by: Shari Peele
- Length: 10 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 37
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 26
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 25
Diane McKinney-Whetstone, the award-winning and best-selling author of Tumbling, presents Trading Dreams at Midnight - - an Essence Book Club Recommended Read. Back in 1984, 15-year-old Neena's mother left and never came back. And now Neena is following in her footsteps.
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2 out of 5 stars
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Hard to follow
- By Nevada on 08-13-10
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Jazz
- By: Toni Morrison
- Narrated by: Toni Morrison
- Length: 3 hrs
- Abridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 519
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 427
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 425
In the winter of 1926, when everybody everywhere sees nothing but good things ahead, Joe Trace, middle-aged door-to-door salesman of Cleopatra beauty products, shoots his teenage lover to death. At the funeral, Joe’s wife, Violet, attacks the girl’s corpse. This novel “transforms a familiar refrain of jilted love into a bold, sustaining time of self-knowledge and discovery. Its rhythms are infectious” (People).
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1 out of 5 stars
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The audio is not the same as the book
- By Rocio on 03-29-16
By: Toni Morrison
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Paradise
- By: Toni Morrison
- Narrated by: Toni Morrison
- Length: 15 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 246
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 211
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 208
In Paradise - her first novel since she was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature - Toni Morrison gives us a bravura performance. As the book begins deep in Oklahoma early one morning in 1976, nine men from Ruby (pop. 360), in defense of "the one all-black town worth the pain", assault the nearby Convent and the women in it. From the town's ancestral origins in 1890 to the fateful day of the assault, Paradise tells the story of a people ever mindful of the relationship between their spectacular history and a void.