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The Electric Hotel
- Narrated by: Edoardo Ballerini
- Length: 11 hrs and 25 mins
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The Electric Hotel
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Publisher's summary
From the award-winning author of the acclaimed best seller The Last Painting of Sara de Vos comes a luminous new novel tracing the intertwined fates of a silent film director and his muse.
Los Angeles, 1962: silent filmmaker Claude Ballard's daily routine is interrupted by an aspiring film student, whose inquiries about Claude's famous lost film, The Electric Hotel, sparks memories of a near-forgotten era.
Paris, 1895: 20-year-old Claude Ballard interviews for a job as a 'concession agent' for the Lumiere Brothers. With a CV, such that it is, that contains film of his sister's dying breaths, it's clear how much Claude will put at stake to realise his dreams.... When Claude meets the legendary actress, Sabine Montrose, during the last hours of her 40th birthday in her Manhattan hotel room, inspiration strikes and his fate is sealed.
For nearly half a century, Claude Ballard has been living at the Hollywood Knickerbocker Hotel. A French pioneer of silent films who started out as a concession agent for the Lumiere brothers, the inventors of cinema, Claude now spends his days foraging mushrooms in the hills of Los Angeles and taking photographs of runaways and the striplings along Sunset Boulevard. But when a film-history student comes to interview Claude about The Electric Hotel - the lost masterpiece that bankrupted him and ended the career of his muse, Sabine Montrose - the past comes surging back. In his rundown hotel suite, the ravages of the past are waiting to be excavated: celluloid fragments and reels in desperate need of restoration, and Claude's memories of the woman who inspired and beguiled him.
Spanning three continents and the best part of a century, Dominic Smith takes us on a tour of the heart, to Paris, Manhattan, Brooklyn, the Palisades, Los Angeles, Belgium, Andorra and our very own Tamarama. Luminous, breath-taking, epic and intimate, The Electric Hotel is the new literary masterpiece from the author of the award-winning The Last Painting of Sara de Vos.
Critic reviews
"Beautifully imagined and researched, enthralling and sometimes shocking, The Electric Hotel is a glorious tribute to the birth of movies." (Heather Rose)
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- A Novel
- By: Beatriz Williams
- Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell, Saskia Maarleveld
- Length: 16 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 688
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 608
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Story4 out of 5 stars 602
The Bahamas, 1941. Newly widowed Leonora “Lulu” Randolph arrives in Nassau to investigate the governor and his wife for a New York society magazine. After all, American readers have an insatiable appetite for news of the duke and duchess of Windsor, that glamorous couple whose love affair nearly brought the British monarchy to its knees five years earlier. What more intriguing backdrop for their romance than a wartime Caribbean paradise, a colonial playground for kingpins of ill-gotten empires? Or so Lulu imagines.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Stick with it!
- By Colleen on 07-17-19
By: Beatriz Williams
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The German House
- By: Annette Hess
- Narrated by: Nina Franoszek
- Length: 10 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 41
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 34
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 34
Set against the Frankfurt Auschwitz Trials of 1963, Annette Hess’ international best seller is a harrowing yet ultimately uplifting coming-of-age story about a young female translator - caught between societal and familial expectations and her unique ability to speak truth to power - as she fights to expose the dark truths of her nation’s past.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Just ok
- By Jennifer on 12-16-19
By: Annette Hess
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The Wapshot Chronicle
- By: John Cheever
- Narrated by: Joe Barrett
- Length: 11 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 128
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 109
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 108
Based in part on Cheever's adolescence in New England, the novel follows the destinies of the impecunious and wildly eccentric Wapshots of St. Botolphs, a quintessential Massachusetts fishing village. Here are the stories of Captain Leander Wapshot, venerable sea dog and would-be suicide; of his licentious older son, Moses; and of Moses' adoring and errant younger brother, Coverly.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Beautiful 1950s Great Expectations-like Novel
- By Darwin8u on 05-31-13
By: John Cheever
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The Third Daughter
- A Novel
- By: Talia Carner
- Narrated by: Saskia Maarleveld
- Length: 10 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 375
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 335
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 332
The turn of the 20th century finds 14-year-old Batya in the Russian countryside, fleeing with her family endless pogroms. Desperate, her father leaps at the opportunity to marry Batya to a worldly, wealthy stranger who can guarantee his daughter an easy life and passage to America. Feeling like a princess in a fairytale, Batya leaves her old life behind as she is whisked away to a new world. But soon, she discovers that she’s entered a waking nightmare. Her new “husband” does indeed bring her to America.
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5 out of 5 stars
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brilliant novel based on shocking truth
- By Rochelle Jewel Shapiro on 07-05-20
By: Talia Carner
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The Folded Leaf
- By: William Maxwell
- Narrated by: Mark Boyett
- Length: 9 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 69
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 61
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Story4 out of 5 stars 61
Here is a classic novel from one of our most honored writers - the author of such acclaimed works as So Long, See You Tomorrow and All the Days and Nights. The Folded Leaf is the serenely observed yet deeply moving story of two boys finding one another in the Midwest of the 1920s, when childhood lasted longer than it does today and even adults were more innocent of what life could bring.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Midwestern Misfits
- By David on 03-17-15
By: William Maxwell
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Pnin
- By: Vladimir Nabokov
- Narrated by: Stefan Rudnicki
- Length: 5 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 178
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 140
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 140
One of the best-loved of Nabokov's novels, Pnin features his funniest and most heart-rending character. Professor Timofey Pnin is a haplessly disoriented Russian emigre precariously employed on an American college campus in the 1950s. Pnin struggles to maintain his dignity through a series of comic and sad misunderstandings, all the while falling victim both to subtle academic conspiracies and to the manipulations of a deliberately unreliable narrator.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Why not leave their private sorrows to people?
- By Darwin8u on 01-13-20
By: Vladimir Nabokov
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Vacationland
- By: Sarah Stonich
- Narrated by: Amanda Ronconi
- Length: 12 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 45
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 41
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Story4 out of 5 stars 40
On a lake in northernmost Minnesota, you might find Naledi Lodge - only two cabins still standing, its pathways now trodden mostly by memories. And there you might meet Meg, or the ghost of the girl she was, growing up under her grandfather’s care in a world apart and a lifetime ago. Now an artist, Meg paints images "reflected across the mirrors of memory and water", much as the linked stories of Vacationland cast shimmering spells across distance and time.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Reminded me of home
- By jill on 06-02-13
By: Sarah Stonich
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The Recognitions
- By: William Gaddis
- Narrated by: Nick Sullivan
- Length: 47 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 219
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 175
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Story4 out of 5 stars 176
Wyatt Gwyon's desire to forge is not driven by larceny but from love. Exactingly faithful to the spirit and letter of the Flemish masters, he produces uncannily accurate "originals" - pictures the painters themselves might have envied. In an age of counterfeit emotion and taste, the real and fake have become indistinguishable; yet Gwyon's forgeries reflect a truth that others cannot touch - cannot even recognize.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Breathtaking, Dizzying, Stimulating, Funny
- By andrew on 11-17-10
By: William Gaddis
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The Eighth Detective
- A Novel
- By: Alex Pavesi
- Narrated by: Emilia Fox
- Length: 11 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 403
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 347
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Story4 out of 5 stars 345
Grant McAllister, a professor of mathematics, once sat down and worked all the rules out – and wrote seven perfect detective stories to demonstrate. But that was 30 years ago. Now Grant lives in seclusion on a remote Mediterranean island, counting the rest of his days. Until Julia Hart, a brilliant, ambitious editor knocks on his door. Julia wishes to republish his book, and together they must revisit those old stories: An author hiding from his past and an editor keen to understand it.
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5 out of 5 stars
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GOING IN MY TOP 10!!
- By Shaelyn on 08-07-20
By: Alex Pavesi
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Jacob's Room
- By: Virginia Woolf
- Narrated by: Nadia May
- Length: 6 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 91
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 61
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Story4 out of 5 stars 61
Jacob's Room was the first of Virginia Woolf's novels to be published by the Hogarth Press, founded with her husband, Leonard Woolf, in their home at Hogarth House in Richmond in 1917. It is an episodic tale that attempts to evoke the inner life of Jacob Flanders and his social milieu during the first decade-and-a-half of the 20th century.
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4 out of 5 stars
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A good listen
- By Cecilie Malling on 03-21-05
By: Virginia Woolf
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Dry Bones
- By: Peter May
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 10 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 2,078
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 1,879
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Story4 out of 5 stars 1,874
What happened to Jacques Gaillard? The brilliant teacher at the École Nationale d’Administration, who trained some of France’s best and brightest as future prime ministers and presidents, vanished ten years ago, presumably from Paris. This ten-year-old mystery inspires a bet—one that Enzo Macleod, a biologist teaching in Toulouse, France, instead of pursuing a brilliant career in forensics back home in Scotland, can ill afford to lose.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Engaging hero, stellar narration
- By Janice on 11-01-13
By: Peter May
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Light Years
- By: James Salter
- Narrated by: Mark Boyett
- Length: 10 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 142
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 123
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Story4 out of 5 stars 127
This exquisite, resonant novel by PEN/Faulkner winner James Salter is a brilliant portrait of a marriage by a contemporary American master. It is the story of Nedra and Viri, whose favored life is centered around dinners, ingenious games with their children, enviable friends, and near-perfect days passed skating on a frozen river or sunning on the beach.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Unfathomable Font of Blue: Life's Serial Goodbyes
- By W Perry Hall on 04-18-19
By: James Salter
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The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue
- By: V. E. Schwab
- Narrated by: Julia Whelan
- Length: 17 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 37,004
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 32,954
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 32,839
France, 1714: In a moment of desperation, a young woman makes a Faustian bargain to live forever - and is cursed to be forgotten by everyone she meets. Thus begins the extraordinary life of Addie LaRue, and a dazzling adventure that will play out across centuries and continents, across history and art, as a young woman learns how far she will go to leave her mark on the world. But everything changes when, after nearly 300 years, Addie stumbles across a young man in a hidden bookstore and he remembers her name.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Prose style not to my liking
- By C.V. Cox on 10-18-20
By: V. E. Schwab
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Who Is Vera Kelly?
- By: Rosalie Knecht
- Narrated by: Elisabeth Rodgers
- Length: 6 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 180
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 157
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Story3.5 out of 5 stars 156
New York City, 1962. Vera Kelly is struggling to make rent and blend into the underground gay scene in Greenwich Village. She's working night shifts at a radio station when her quick wits, sharp tongue, and technical skills get her noticed by a recruiter for the CIA. Next thing she knows she's in Argentina, tasked with wiretapping a congressman and infiltrating a group of student activists in Buenos Aires. When a betrayal leaves her stranded in the wake of a coup, Vera learns the Cold War makes for strange and unexpected bedfellows.
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2 out of 5 stars
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not a whole lot of spycraft just a good story
- By Kirra Krussman on 01-19-19
By: Rosalie Knecht
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The Price of Illusion
- A Memoir
- By: Joan Juliet Buck
- Narrated by: Joan Juliet Buck
- Length: 15 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 50
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 47
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 47
From Joan Juliet Buck, former editor-in-chief of Paris Vogue, comes a dazzling memoir: a fabulous account of four decades spent in the creative heart of London, New York, Los Angeles, and Paris, chronicling Buck's quest to discover the difference between glitter and gold, illusion and reality, and what looks like happiness from the thing itself.
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2 out of 5 stars
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Narcissistic name dropper
- By Marlette on 12-03-19
By: Joan Juliet Buck
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The First Man
- By: Albert Camus
- Narrated by: Jefferson Mays
- Length: 8 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 43
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 39
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 39
In The First Man, Albert Camus tells the story of Jacques Cormery, a boy who lived a life much like his own. Camus summons up the sights, sounds, and textures of a childhood circumscribed by poverty and a father's death yet redeemed by the austere beauty of Algeria and the boy's attachment to his nearly deaf-mute mother. The result is a moving journey through the lost landscape of youth that also discloses the wellsprings of Camus's aesthetic powers and moral vision.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Great Narration by Jefferson Mays
- By Sean Patrick Stevens on 07-31-21
By: Albert Camus