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The Playboy of the Western World
- Narrated by: Cyril Cusack, Siobhan McKenna
- Length: 1 hr and 27 mins
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The Playboy of the Western World
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Editorial reviews
One of the best-known plays by one of Ireland's most famous playwrights, and starring some of the country's top actors of the 20th century. In this memorable tale, Christy Mahon arrives at a village pub claiming to have killed his tyrannical father, and the villagers embrace him - at least until his father returns. Siobhan McKenna plays one of her best-known roles as the innkeeper's daughter who showers Mahon with affection, while the famed Cyril Cusack is excellent as the mysterious stranger himself. A play that's both poetic and funny, with a wonderful use of local dialect.
Publisher's summary
One of the best-known Irish playwrights, John Millington Synge premiered The Playboy of the Western World in 1907. It immediately provoked controversy, eventually resulting in the infamous "Playboy" riots.
It has been recorded and adapted many times, but this timeless recording stars the Irish actors who made it a classic, including Siobhan McKenna and Cyril Cusack.
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By: Kate Forrester
-
Growth of the Soil
- By: Knut Hamsun, Sverre Lyngstad - translator, Brad Leithauser - introduction
- Narrated by: BJ Harrison
- Length: 15 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 32
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 26
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 26
Growth of the Soil, Hamsun's Nobel Prize winning novel, is a classic of Scandinavian literature. The farmer Isak scarcely acknowledges the values of modern living. Illiterate but capable of carrying out the business of running a farm, he has physical strength and works with his hands. Although initially amazed by Isak's prowess - his wife Inger, who came into contact with modern society when imprisoned for killing her infant due to its birth defect, return to the home much less impressed by the country life.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Top of my all time favorites list
- By Pete on 05-17-21
By: Knut Hamsun, and others
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A Vision of Light
- A Margaret of Ashbury Novel, Book 1
- By: Judith Merkle Riley
- Narrated by: Anne Flosnik
- Length: 15 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 133
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 120
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 119
Margaret of Ashbury wants to write her life story. However, like most women in 14th-century England, she is illiterate. Three clerics contemptuously decline to be Margaret’s scribe, and only the threat of starvation persuades Brother Gregory, a Carthusian friar with a mysterious past, to take on the task. As she narrates her life, we discover a woman of startling resourcefulness.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Old fashioned heroine
- By Margaret on 06-22-13
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Far from the Madding Crowd
- By: Thomas Hardy
- Narrated by: David McCallion
- Length: 13 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 35
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 31
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 30
Far from the Madding Crowd, which first appeared in Cornhill Magazine in monthly installments back in the late 19th century, features the love life of the young Bathsheba Everdene who is as poor as she is beautiful. Fortunately, Bathsheba's uncle leaves her his farm, which she goes to manage in the small town of Weatherbury. Before she leaves, however, she has an interesting encounter with a young farmer, Gabriel Oak, for whom she does a tremendous favor ,and he becomes indebted to her....
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5 out of 5 stars
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Loved this delightful listening experience !!!
- By Robin Wardle on 07-15-16
By: Thomas Hardy
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My Name Is Resolute
- By: Nancy E. Turner
- Narrated by: Mhairi Morrison
- Length: 25 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 189
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 168
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Story5 out of 5 stars 168
The year is 1729, and Resolute Talbot and her siblings are captured by pirates, taken from their family in Jamaica and brought to the New World. Resolute and her sister are sold into slavery in colonial New England and taught the trade of spinning and weaving. When Resolute finds herself alone in Lexington, Massachusetts, she struggles to find her way in a society that is quick to judge a young woman without a family. As the seeds of rebellion against England grow, Resolute is torn between following the rules and breaking free.
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5 out of 5 stars
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A life well lived!
- By Anonymous User on 06-20-23
By: Nancy E. Turner
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Cathedral
- By: Ben Hopkins
- Narrated by: Malk Williams, Sophie Roberts
- Length: 19 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 76
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 64
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Story4 out of 5 stars 64
A sweeping story about obsession, mysticism, art and earthly desire. At the centre of this story is the Cathedral. Its design and construction in the 13th and 14th centuries in the fictional town of Hagenburg unites a vast array of unforgettable characters whose fortunes are inseparable from the shifting political factions and economic interests vying for supremacy. From the bishop to his treasurer, from local merchants to lowly stonecutters, the fate of everyone, both Gentile and Jew, is affected by the slow rise of Hagenburg’s cathedral.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Interesting description of life in the Middle Ages
- By leongork on 06-30-21
By: Ben Hopkins
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At Swim-Two-Birds
- By: Flann O’Brien
- Narrated by: Alan Smyth
- Length: 10 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 58
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 44
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Story4 out of 5 stars 43
A wildly comic send-up of Irish literature and culture, At Swim-Two-Birds is the story of a young, lazy, and frequently drunk Irish college student who lives with his curmudgeonly uncle in Dublin. When not in bed (where he seems to spend most of his time) or reading, he is composing a mischief-filled novel about Dermot Trellis, a second-rate author whose characters ultimately rebel against him and seek vengeance. From drugging him as he sleeps to dropping the ceiling on his head, these figures of Irish myth make Trellis pay dearly for his bad writing.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Worth waiting for
- By Ken Watkins on 02-04-20
By: Flann O’Brien
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Spoon River Anthology
- By: Edgar Lee Masters
- Narrated by: Patrick Fraley, Edward Asner
- Length: 4 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 104
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 72
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Story4 out of 5 stars 71
From a cemetery in a mythical small town in Illinois, the dead speak about their lives. Each free-verse monologue stands as an epitaph for the person speaking, yet the play is ultimately about life, not death. Featuring 50 performers with specially commissioned original music, this is the only audio version of this landmark classic available.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Magnificent American poetry
- By Admiral Pike on 04-14-05
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What Men Live By
- By: Leo Tolstoy
- Narrated by: Max Highstein
- Length: 1 hr
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 38
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 33
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 33
One winter evening a shoemaker finds a mysterious stranger naked and freezing by a shrine in his small village. The shoemaker rescues the man, and takes him home. Though the stranger won’t say where he came from, Simon invites him to work beside him, and stay with his family. As the story unfolds, the stranger transforms, and ultimately reveals an astonishing and deeply moving secret. Late in Tolstoy’s life, after he had written his great masterpieces War and Peace, and Anna Karenina, he underwent a spiritual transformation.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Short but powerful story from Leo Tolstoy
- By Anonymous User on 09-19-21
By: Leo Tolstoy
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Sons and Lovers
- By: D. H. Lawrence
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 16 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 344
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 290
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Story4 out of 5 stars 291
Sons and Lovers, D. H. Lawrence's first major novel, was also the first in the English language to explore ordinary working-class life from the inside. No writer before or since has written so well about the intimacies enforced by a tightly knit mining community and by a family where feelings are never hidden for long. When the marriage between Walter Morel and his sensitive, high-minded wife begins to break down, the bitterness of their frustration seeps into their children's lives.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Momma's Boy (The Dangers of Overbearing Parenting)
- By W Perry Hall on 02-01-14
By: D. H. Lawrence
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Sunset Song
- By: Lewis Gibbon
- Narrated by: Eileen McCallum
- Length: 11 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 85
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 79
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 80
The most acclaimed Scottish novel of all time, Sunset Song is a powerful portrait of a land and people in turmoil, seen through the life and struggles of its heroine, Chris Guthrie. In the years up to and beyond the First World War, Chris' resilience, like the land itself, endures despite everything and is portrayed with a lyrical intensity that echoes through the years and still resonates today.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Absolute masterpiece!
- By Jeff Koeppen on 03-03-18
By: Lewis Gibbon
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The Magician of Lublin
- By: Isaac Bashevis Singer
- Narrated by: Larry Keith
- Length: 7 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 69
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 51
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 50
The Magician can dazzle the crowds with his sleight of hand, climb to any height, open any lock. Fearlessly, he does death-defying tricks in theaters all over Poland. At home, his sweet Jewish wife waits for him to return from the city. In the city, his adoring mistresses wait for him to return from home. He holds the key to all hearts, but his own is beset with confusion.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Complex Masterpiece
- By Evan on 09-11-08
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A Wayside Tavern
- By: Norah Lofts
- Narrated by: Jonathan Keeble
- Length: 15 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 38
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 29
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Story4 out of 5 stars 30
A Wayside Tavern tells the story of a Suffolk drinking place from the end of the Roman occupation of Britain, until the present day. The Roman veteran, crippled and left behind, worshipped Mithras, so the place became known as the One Bull and down through the centuries it became a clearing house for contraband, a miniature Hell Fire Club, a fashionable hotel, a mere pub. Across the yard, was the church of St Cerdic, king and martyr, who fought the Danes and was famous for the miracles performed at his shrine.
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4 out of 5 stars
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An enjoyable tale
- By Gordon on 10-07-11
By: Norah Lofts
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Meeting the Other Crowd
- The Fairy Stories of Hidden Ireland
- By: Eddie Lenihan, Carolyn Eve Green
- Narrated by: Roger Clark
- Length: 8 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 42
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 36
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Story5 out of 5 stars 37
"The Other Crowd", "The Good People", "The Wee Folk", and "Them" are a few of the names given to the fairies by the people of Ireland. Honored for their gifts and feared for their wrath, the fairies remind us to respect the world we live in and the forces we cannot see. In these tales of fairy forts, fairy trees, ancient histories, and modern true-life encounters with the Other Crowd, Eddie Lenihan opens our eyes to this invisible world with the passion and bluntness of a seanchai, a true Irish storyteller.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Fantastic storytelling but.....
- By H.A.G. on 03-30-22
By: Eddie Lenihan, and others
What listeners say about The Playboy of the Western World
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
- NYC Amazon buyer
- 07-10-17
Perfection
An astonishing, classic performance of the greatest play Synge wrote. Incredible that this cast has been captured, all of them legends of their time, which was in living memory of Synge himself. If you want to really understand the play, this is a stunning inroad.
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