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The Art of Youth
- Crane, Carrington, Gershwin, and the Nature of First Acts
- Narrated by: Jeff Crawford
- Length: 6 hrs and 12 mins
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The Art of Youth
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Publisher's summary
The Art of Youth is a moving inquiry into the nature of artistic prodigies who did their major work at an early age. Renowned novelist Nicholas Delbanco gives us a triptych of indelible portraits: the American writer Stephen Crane (immortalized by The Red Badge of Courage); British artist Dora Carrington (called "the most neglected serious painter of her time"); and the legendary composer George Gershwin (Rhapsody in Blue, Porgy and Bess).
All three lived colorful, productive lives before dying early, at an average age of thirty-five. In this learned and elegant audiobook, Delbanco discovers what it is we mourn in authors who pass away so young, and muses on his own life - one marked by both early success and longevity.
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By: Sebastian Smee
-
Rebel Souls
- Walt Whitman and America's First Bohemians
- By: Justin Martin
- Narrated by: Dennis Holland
- Length: 10 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 31
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 30
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 30
Rebel Souls is the first book ever written about the colorful group of artists - regulars at Pfaff's Saloon in Manhattan - rightly considered America's original Bohemians. Besides a young Whitman, the circle included actor Edwin Booth; trailblazing stand–up comic Artemus Ward; psychedelic drug pioneer and author Fitz Hugh Ludlow; and brazen performer Adah Menken, famous for her Naked Lady routine. Central to their times, the artists managed to forge connections with Ralph Waldo Emerson, Mark Twain, and even Abraham Lincoln.
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5 out of 5 stars
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A Wonderful Read with Vibrant Characters
- By A on 11-11-15
By: Justin Martin
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Keats
- A Brief Life in Nine Poems and One Epitaph
- By: Lucasta Miller
- Narrated by: Sally Scott
- Length: 10 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 44
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 37
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Story5 out of 5 stars 36
Miller, through Keats’s poetry, brilliantly resurrects and brings vividly to life, the man, the poet in all his complexity and spirit, living dangerously, disdaining respectability and cultural norms, and embracing subversive politics. Keats was a lower-middle-class outsider from a tragic and fractured family, whose extraordinary energy and love of language allowed him to pummel his way into the heart of English literature; a freethinker and a liberal at a time of repression, who delighted in the sensation of the moment.
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5 out of 5 stars
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A Romantic Life
- By David on 05-03-22
By: Lucasta Miller
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Zelda Fitzgerald
- The Tragic, Meticulously Researched Biography of the Jazz Age's High Priestess
- By: Sally Cline
- Narrated by: Coleen Marlo
- Length: 17 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 83
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 73
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Story4 out of 5 stars 74
Zelda Fitzgerald was the mythical American Dream Girl of the Roaring Twenties who became, in the words of her husband, F. Scott Fitzgerald, "the first American flapper." Their romance transformed a symbol of glamour and spectacle of the Jazz Age. When Zelda cracked up, not long after the stock market crash of 1929, Scott remained loyal to her through a nightmare of later breakdowns and final madness.
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2 out of 5 stars
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The Beautiful and the Bungled
- By Silverthorne on 12-08-17
By: Sally Cline
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Melville in Love
- The Secret Life of Herman Melville and the Muse of Moby-Dick
- By: Michael Shelden
- Narrated by: Sean Pratt
- Length: 6 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 27
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 26
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 25
Herman Melville's epic novel, Moby-Dick, was a spectacular failure when it was published in 1851, effectively ending its author's rise to literary fame. Because he was neglected by academics for so long, and because he made little effort to preserve his legacy, we know very little about Melville, and even less about what he called his "wicked book". Scholars still puzzle over what drove Melville to invent Captain Ahab's mad pursuit of the great white whale.
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4 out of 5 stars
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intriguing
- By Jean on 06-18-16
By: Michael Shelden
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Empire of Self
- A Life of Gore Vidal
- By: Jay Parini
- Narrated by: John Lescault
- Length: 16 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 100
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 89
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 89
The product of 30 years of friendship and conversation, Jay Parini's Empire of Self probes behind the glittering surface of Gore Vidal's colorful life to reveal the complex emotional and sexual truth underlying his celebrity-strewn life. But there is plenty of glittering surface as well - a virtual who's who of the American Century, from Eleanor Roosevelt and Amelia Earhart through the Kennedys, Princess Margaret, and the creme de la creme of Hollywood.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Well done!
- By Christopher on 03-22-16
By: Jay Parini
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Ted Hughes
- The Unauthorized Life
- By: Jonathan Bate
- Narrated by: Mike Grady
- Length: 25 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 34
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 32
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 32
Ted Hughes, poet laureate, was one of the greatest writers of the 20th century. With an equal gift for poetry and prose, and with a soul as capacious as any poet in history, he was also a prolific children's writer and has been hailed as the greatest English letter writer since John Keats. His magnetic personality and insatiable appetite for friendship, love, and life also attracted more scandal than any poet since Lord Byron.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Phenomenal thanks to narrator!
- By equinox14 on 06-26-16
By: Jonathan Bate
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Nazi Literature in the Americas
- By: Roberto Bolaño, Chris Andrews - translator
- Narrated by: Jonathan Davis
- Length: 6 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 71
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 60
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Story4 out of 5 stars 59
A tour de force of black humor and imaginary erudition, Nazi Literature in the Americas presents itself as a biographical dictionary of writers who espoused extreme right-wing ideologies in the 20th and 21st centuries.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Eerie and fascinating
- By Jikai Zenshin on 03-19-21
By: Roberto Bolaño, and others
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The Awakening
- By: Kate Chopin
- Narrated by: Susie Berneis
- Length: 5 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 337
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 286
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Story4 out of 5 stars 284
Unsatisfied with the expectations of Creole society and unhappy with her family life, Edna Pontellier begins to fall in love with the dapper Robert Lebrun. Lebrun's flirtations, along with the lifestyle of renowned musician Mademoiselle Reisz, rejuvenates Edna's sense of freedom and independence. However, an affair with the womanizer Alcee Arobin provides Edna with a taste of the danger that comes with living outside of social convention.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Good story, great reading.
- By Donald on 03-14-17
By: Kate Chopin
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The Club
- Johnson, Boswell, and the Friends Who Shaped an Age
- By: Leo Damrosch
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 15 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 358
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 299
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 294
In 1763, the painter Joshua Reynolds proposed to his friend Samuel Johnson that they invite a few friends to join them every Friday at the Turk's Head Tavern in London to dine, drink, and talk until midnight. Eventually, the group came to include among its members Edmund Burke, Adam Smith, Edward Gibbon, and James Boswell. It was known simply as "the Club". In this captivating audiobook, Leo Damrosch brings alive a brilliant, competitive, and eccentric cast of characters.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Wonderful survey
- By Tad Davis on 05-10-19
By: Leo Damrosch
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David Lynch
- The Man from Another Place (Icons)
- By: Dennis Lim
- Narrated by: Jeff Cummings
- Length: 6 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 104
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 89
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 90
At once a pop culture icon, cult figure, and film industry outsider, master filmmaker David Lynch and his work defy easy definition. Dredged from his subconscious mind, Lynch's work is primed to act on our own subconscious, combining heightened, contradictory emotions into something familiar but inscrutable. No less than his art, Lynch's life also evades simple categorization, encompassing pursuits as a musician, painter, photographer, carpenter, entrepreneur, and vocal proponent of Transcendental Meditation.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Essential listening for Lunch fans
- By Michael P. Mesaros on 08-14-18
By: Dennis Lim
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Butterfly in the Typewriter
- The Tragic Life of John Kennedy Toole and the Remarkable Story of a Confederacy of Dunces
- By: Cory MacLauchlin
- Narrated by: Nick Sullivan
- Length: 11 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 58
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 48
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 48
The saga of John Kennedy Toole is one of the greatest stories of American literary history. In Butterfly in the Typewriter, Cory MacLauchlin draws on scores of new interviews with friends, family, and colleagues as well as full access to the extensive Toole archive at Tulane University, capturing his upbringing in New Orleans, his years in New York City, his frenzy of writing in Puerto Rico, his return to his beloved city, and his descent into paranoia and depression.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Worth it! Good biography. Informative.
- By French Quarter on 07-09-13
By: Cory MacLauchlin
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Reading Like a Writer
- By: Francine Prose
- Narrated by: Nanette Savard
- Length: 8 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 230
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 147
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Story4 out of 5 stars 142
In her entertaining and edifying New York Times bestseller, acclaimed author Francine Prose invites you to sit by her side and take a guided tour of the tools and the tricks of the masters and discover why their work has endured. Written with passion, humor, and wisdom, Reading Like a Writer will inspire listeners to return to literature with a fresh eye and an eager heart.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Practical, literate, generous
- By Gare on 04-13-08
By: Francine Prose
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Mark Twain
- A Life
- By: Ron Powers
- Narrated by: Ron Powers
- Length: 10 hrs and 54 mins
- Abridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 120
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 77
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 76
Mark Twain founded the American voice. His works are a living national treasury: taught, quoted, and reprinted more than those of any writer except Shakespeare. His awestruck contemporaries saw him as the representative figure of his times, and his influence has deeply flavored the 20th and 21st centuries.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Buy the Book
- By W.Denis on 10-22-05
By: Ron Powers
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The Fellowship
- The Literary LIves of the Inklings: J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Owen Barfield, Charles Williams
- By: Philip Zaleski, Carol Zaleski
- Narrated by: John Curless
- Length: 26 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 487
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 444
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 441
C. S. Lewis is the 20th century's most widely read Christian writer and J. R. R. Tolkien its most beloved mythmaker. For three decades they and their closest associates formed a literary club known as the Inklings, which met weekly in Lewis' Oxford rooms and a nearby pub. They read aloud from works in progress, argued about anything that caught their fancy, and gave one another invaluable companionship, inspiration, and criticism.
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4 out of 5 stars
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If You Love Literature...
- By Ray M on 07-14-16
By: Philip Zaleski, and others