The Privileges
People who bought this also bought...
-
American Rust
- By: Philipp Meyer
- Narrated by: Tom Stechschulte
- Length: 12 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 363
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 290
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 289
Set in a beautiful but economically devastated Pennsylvania steel town, American Rust is a novel of the lost American dream and the desperation-as well as the acts of friendship, loyalty, and love-that arise from its loss. From local bars to train yards to prison, it is the story of two young men, bound to the town by family, responsibility, inertia, and the beauty around them, who dream of a future beyond the factories and abandoned homes.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
A Web of Despair and Desperation
- By Darwin8u on 07-16-12
-
The Topeka School
- A Novel
- By: Ben Lerner
- Narrated by: Nancy Linari, Peter Berkrot, Tristan Wright
- Length: 10 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 489
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 417
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 416
Adam Gordon is a senior at Topeka High School, class of ’97. His mother, Jane, is a famous feminist author; his father, Jonathan, is an expert at getting "lost boys" to open up. They both work at a psychiatric clinic that has attracted staff and patients from around the world. Adam is a renowned debater, expected to win a national championship before he heads to college. He is one of the cool kids, ready to fight or, better, freestyle about fighting if it keeps his peers from thinking of him as weak.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
Strong novel about 1990s
- By citizen, jazzmania on 01-11-20
-
The Snow Child
- By: Eowyn Ivey
- Narrated by: Therese Plummer
- Length: 10 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 1,201
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 1,099
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 1,094
Alaska, 1920: a brutal place to homestead, and especially tough for recent arrivals Jack and Mabel. Childless, they are drifting apart - he breaking under the weight of the work of the farm; she crumbling from loneliness and despair. In a moment of levity during the season's first snowfall, they build a child out of snow. The next morning the snow child is gone - but they glimpse a young, blonde-haired girl running through the trees. This little girl, who calls herself Faina, seems to be a child of the woods.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
WOW!!! A MUST Listen - even better than reading.
- By Edmund W. Cheung on 02-13-19
-
Maud's Line
- By: Margaret Verble
- Narrated by: Carla Mercer-Meyer
- Length: 10 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 59
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 52
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 52
Eastern Oklahoma, 1928. Eighteen-year-old Maud Nail lives with her rogue father and sensitive brother on one of the allotments parceled out by the US government to the Cherokees when their land was confiscated for Oklahoma's statehood. Maud's days are filled with hard work and simple pleasures, but often marked by violence and tragedy, a fact that she accepts with determined practicality.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Original and engrossing
- By Katie Cooper on 09-17-16
-
American Pastoral
- By: Philip Roth
- Narrated by: Ron Silver
- Length: 15 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 2,734
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 2,012
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 1,999
Philip Roth presents a vivid portrait of an innocent man being swept away by a current of conflict and violence in his own backyard - a story that is as much about loving America as it is hating it. Seymour "Swede" Levov, a legendary high school athlete, a devoted family man, a hard worker, and the prosperous heir of his father's Newark glove factory comes of age in thriving, triumphant postwar America. But everything he loves is lost when the country begins to run amok in the turbulent 1960s. Not even a most private, well-intentioned citizen, it seems, gets to sidestep the sweep of history. American Pastoral is the story of a fortunate American's rise and fall ... a strong, confident man, a master of social equilibrium, overwhelmed by the forces of social disorder. For the Swede is not allowed to stay forever blissful living out life in rural Old Rimrock in his 170 year-old stone farmhouse with his pretty wife (his college sweetheart and Miss New Jersey of 1949) and his lively albeit precocious daughter, the apple of his eye ... that is until she grows up to become a revolutionary terrorist.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Relentless
- By Jeff on 12-29-04
-
Train Dreams
- A Novella
- By: Denis Johnson
- Narrated by: Will Patton
- Length: 2 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 189
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 163
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 162
Robert Grainer is a day laborer in the American West at the start of the 20th century—an ordinary man in extraordinary times. Buffeted by the loss of his family, Grainer struggles to make sense of this strange new world. As his story unfolds, we witness both his shocking personal defeats and the radical changes that transform America in his lifetime.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
2011 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction finalist
- By Louis on 06-20-12
-
American Rust
- By: Philipp Meyer
- Narrated by: Tom Stechschulte
- Length: 12 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 363
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 290
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 289
Set in a beautiful but economically devastated Pennsylvania steel town, American Rust is a novel of the lost American dream and the desperation-as well as the acts of friendship, loyalty, and love-that arise from its loss. From local bars to train yards to prison, it is the story of two young men, bound to the town by family, responsibility, inertia, and the beauty around them, who dream of a future beyond the factories and abandoned homes.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
A Web of Despair and Desperation
- By Darwin8u on 07-16-12
-
The Topeka School
- A Novel
- By: Ben Lerner
- Narrated by: Nancy Linari, Peter Berkrot, Tristan Wright
- Length: 10 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 489
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 417
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 416
Adam Gordon is a senior at Topeka High School, class of ’97. His mother, Jane, is a famous feminist author; his father, Jonathan, is an expert at getting "lost boys" to open up. They both work at a psychiatric clinic that has attracted staff and patients from around the world. Adam is a renowned debater, expected to win a national championship before he heads to college. He is one of the cool kids, ready to fight or, better, freestyle about fighting if it keeps his peers from thinking of him as weak.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
Strong novel about 1990s
- By citizen, jazzmania on 01-11-20
-
The Snow Child
- By: Eowyn Ivey
- Narrated by: Therese Plummer
- Length: 10 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 1,201
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 1,099
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 1,094
Alaska, 1920: a brutal place to homestead, and especially tough for recent arrivals Jack and Mabel. Childless, they are drifting apart - he breaking under the weight of the work of the farm; she crumbling from loneliness and despair. In a moment of levity during the season's first snowfall, they build a child out of snow. The next morning the snow child is gone - but they glimpse a young, blonde-haired girl running through the trees. This little girl, who calls herself Faina, seems to be a child of the woods.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
WOW!!! A MUST Listen - even better than reading.
- By Edmund W. Cheung on 02-13-19
-
Maud's Line
- By: Margaret Verble
- Narrated by: Carla Mercer-Meyer
- Length: 10 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 59
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 52
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 52
Eastern Oklahoma, 1928. Eighteen-year-old Maud Nail lives with her rogue father and sensitive brother on one of the allotments parceled out by the US government to the Cherokees when their land was confiscated for Oklahoma's statehood. Maud's days are filled with hard work and simple pleasures, but often marked by violence and tragedy, a fact that she accepts with determined practicality.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Original and engrossing
- By Katie Cooper on 09-17-16
-
American Pastoral
- By: Philip Roth
- Narrated by: Ron Silver
- Length: 15 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 2,734
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 2,012
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 1,999
Philip Roth presents a vivid portrait of an innocent man being swept away by a current of conflict and violence in his own backyard - a story that is as much about loving America as it is hating it. Seymour "Swede" Levov, a legendary high school athlete, a devoted family man, a hard worker, and the prosperous heir of his father's Newark glove factory comes of age in thriving, triumphant postwar America. But everything he loves is lost when the country begins to run amok in the turbulent 1960s. Not even a most private, well-intentioned citizen, it seems, gets to sidestep the sweep of history. American Pastoral is the story of a fortunate American's rise and fall ... a strong, confident man, a master of social equilibrium, overwhelmed by the forces of social disorder. For the Swede is not allowed to stay forever blissful living out life in rural Old Rimrock in his 170 year-old stone farmhouse with his pretty wife (his college sweetheart and Miss New Jersey of 1949) and his lively albeit precocious daughter, the apple of his eye ... that is until she grows up to become a revolutionary terrorist.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Relentless
- By Jeff on 12-29-04
-
Train Dreams
- A Novella
- By: Denis Johnson
- Narrated by: Will Patton
- Length: 2 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 189
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 163
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 162
Robert Grainer is a day laborer in the American West at the start of the 20th century—an ordinary man in extraordinary times. Buffeted by the loss of his family, Grainer struggles to make sense of this strange new world. As his story unfolds, we witness both his shocking personal defeats and the radical changes that transform America in his lifetime.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
2011 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction finalist
- By Louis on 06-20-12
-
The Orphan Master's Son
- A Novel
- By: Adam Johnson
- Narrated by: Tim Kang, Josiah D. Lee, James Kyson Lee, and others
- Length: 19 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 4,384
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 3,928
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 3,929
Pak Jun Do is the haunted son of a lost mother - a singer “stolen” to Pyongyang - and an influential father who runs Long Tomorrows, a work camp for orphans. There the boy is given his first taste of power, picking which orphans eat first and which will be lent out for manual labor. Recognized for his loyalty and keen instincts, Jun Do comes to the attention of superiors in the state, rises in the ranks, and starts on a road from which there will be no return.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
Fascinating!
- By KP on 06-29-13
-
Our Man
- Richard Holbrooke and the End of the American Century
- By: George Packer
- Narrated by: Joe Barrett
- Length: 20 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 314
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 280
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 279
Richard Holbrooke was brilliant, utterly self-absorbed, and possessed of almost inhuman energy and appetites. Admired and detested, he was the force behind the Dayton Accords that ended the Balkan wars, America's greatest diplomatic achievement in the post-Cold War era. His power lay in an utter belief in himself and his idea of a muscular, generous foreign policy. From his days as a young adviser in Vietnam to his last efforts to end the war in Afghanistan, Holbrooke embodied the postwar American impulse to take the lead on the global stage.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Story telling at its finest...
- By Chris Garrett on 11-10-19
-
Commonwealth
- By: Ann Patchett
- Narrated by: Hope Davis
- Length: 10 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 6,834
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 6,215
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 6,217
One Sunday afternoon in Southern California, Bert Cousins shows up at Franny Keating's christening party uninvited. Before evening falls, he has kissed Franny's mother, Beverly - thus setting in motion the dissolution of their marriages and the joining of two families.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
A Must Listen for Patchett fans
- By Jeanie M. Phillips on 09-19-16
-
Black Flags
- The Rise of ISIS
- By: Joby Warrick
- Narrated by: Sunil Malhotra
- Length: 13 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 2,352
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 2,086
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 2,082
Pulitzer Prize, General nonfiction, 2016. When Jordan granted amnesty to a group of political prisoners in 1999, it little realized that among them was Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a terrorist mastermind and soon the architect of an Islamist movement bent on dominating the Middle East. In Black Flags, an unprecedented account of the rise of ISIS, Joby Warrick shows how the zeal of this one man and the strategic mistakes of Presidents Bush and Obama led to the banner of ISIS being raised over huge swaths of Syria and Iraq.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
So much learned
- By mike flavin on 02-11-16
-
Get in Trouble
- Stories
- By: Kelly Link
- Narrated by: Grace Blewer, Kirby Heyborne, Tara Sands, and others
- Length: 9 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 152
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 139
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 140
She has been hailed by Michael Chabon as "the most darkly playful voice in American fiction" and by Neil Gaiman as "a national treasure." Now Kelly Link's eagerly awaited new collection - her first for adult listeners in a decade - proves indelibly that this bewitchingly original writer is among the finest we have.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Very entertaining
- By Joy on 02-20-15
-
Olive, Again (Oprah's Book Club)
- A Novel
- By: Elizabeth Strout
- Narrated by: Kimberly Farr
- Length: 12 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 2,266
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 2,071
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 2,060
Prickly, wry, resistant to change yet ruthlessly honest and deeply empathetic, Olive Kitteridge is “a compelling life force” (San Francisco Chronicle). The New Yorker has said that Elizabeth Strout “animates the ordinary with an astonishing force”, and she has never done so more clearly than in this book, where the iconic Olive struggles to understand not only herself and her own life but the lives of those around her in the town of Crosby, Maine.
-
3 out of 5 stars
-
warning
- By Gloria Flores on 01-08-20
-
The Road
- By: Cormac McCarthy
- Narrated by: Tom Stechschulte
- Length: 6 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 15,568
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 11,400
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 11,426
America is a barren landscape of smoldering ashes, devoid of life except for those people still struggling to scratch out some type of existence. Amidst this destruction, a father and his young son walk, always toward the coast, but with no real understanding that circumstances will improve once they arrive. Still, they persevere, and their relationship comes to represent goodness in a world of utter devastation.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
The Road Too Ruined
- By Dubi on 07-10-19
-
The Gifted School
- A Novel
- By: Bruce Holsinger
- Narrated by: January LaVoy
- Length: 13 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 969
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 878
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 874
This deliciously sharp novel captures the relentless ambitions and fears that animate parents and their children in modern America, exploring the conflicts between achievement and potential, talent and privilege. Set in the fictional town of Crystal, Colorado, The Gifted School is a keenly entertaining novel that observes the drama within a community of friends and parents as good intentions and high ambitions collide in a pile-up with long-held secrets and lies.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Brilliant story AND Narration
- By AudreyLM on 07-05-19
-
Less
- By: Andrew Sean Greer
- Narrated by: Robert Petkoff
- Length: 8 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 5,997
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 5,481
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 5,474
You are a failed novelist about to turn 50. A wedding invitation arrives in the mail: Your boyfriend of the past nine years is engaged to someone else. You can't say yes - it would be too awkward - and you can't say no - it would look like defeat. On your desk are a series of invitations to half-baked literary events around the world. Question: How do you arrange to skip town? Answer: You accept them all.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
Endearing, funny, but sometimes overly clever
- By Lili on 07-30-17
-
Olive Kitteridge
- Fiction
- By: Elizabeth Strout
- Narrated by: Kimberly Farr
- Length: 12 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 1,597
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 1,443
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 1,442
At times stern, at other times patient, at times perceptive, at other times in sad denial, Olive Kitteridge, a retired schoolteacher, deplores the changes in her little town of Crosby, Maine, and in the world at large, but she doesn’t always recognize the changes in those around her: a lounge musician haunted by a past romance; a former student who has lost the will to live; Olive’s own adult child, who feels tyrannized by her irrational sensitivities; and her husband, Henry, who finds his loyalty to his marriage both a blessing and a curse.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
It's a Short Story Collection
- By Kerr506 on 12-08-19
-
The Sympathizer
- A Novel
- By: Viet Thanh Nguyen
- Narrated by: Francois Chau
- Length: 13 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 5,877
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 5,360
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 5,342
Pulitzer Prize, Fiction, 2016. It is April 1975, and Saigon is in chaos. At his villa, a general of the South Vietnamese army is drinking whiskey and, with the help of his trusted captain, drawing up a list of those who will be given passage aboard the last flights out of the country. The general and his compatriots start a new life in Los Angeles, unaware that one among their number, the captain, is secretly observing and reporting on the group to a higher-up in the Viet Cong.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
The Great Vietnamese Novel(Port)Nguyen's Complaint
- By Joe Kraus on 03-31-16
-
Big Sky
- By: Kate Atkinson
- Narrated by: Jason Isaacs
- Length: 11 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 1,049
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 956
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 949
Jackson Brodie has relocated to a quiet seaside village, in the occasional company of his recalcitrant teenage son and an aging Labrador, both at the discretion of his ex-partner Julia. It's picturesque, but there's something darker lurking behind the scenes. Jackson's current job, gathering proof of an unfaithful husband for his suspicious wife, is fairly standard-issue, but a chance encounter with a desperate man on a crumbling cliff leads him into a sinister network - and back across the path of his old friend Reggie.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Flawless
- By Jim C on 07-04-19
Publisher's Summary
Jonathan Dee is the critically acclaimed author of Palladio. With The Privileges, Dee crafts a “suspenseful, melancholy, and acidly funny tale” (Booklist). In it, ambitious couple Adam and Cynthia Morey marry straight out of college and have two children. Then Adam, unfulfilled with his job at a private investment firm, becomes involved in insider trading and gains excessive wealth for his family. But as Adam and Cynthia discover, money can’t buy happiness.
Critic Reviews
More from the same
Author
Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall3 out of 5 stars
-
Performance1 out of 5 stars
-
Story3 out of 5 stars
- Patricia Monahan
- 07-14-17
Terrible Narrator
The narrator of The Privileges was dreadful. His women and children voices sounded like mockeries. I would have stopped listening to it but I was on a long drive and I had run through my podcasts.
The story was interesting enough for a long drive. Not great literature but entertaining.
It would not be the first book I would recommend, I have listened to worse.
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall2 out of 5 stars
-
Performance2 out of 5 stars
-
Story3 out of 5 stars
- Pat
- 03-11-13
A little boring
What disappointed you about The Privileges?
I just had trouble getting into the story..
Who would you have cast as narrator instead of David Aaron Baker?
I liked him as the narrator. I just do not think changing would have made a difference/
2 people found this helpful
-
Overall2 out of 5 stars
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars
-
Story2 out of 5 stars
- Cudmore Family
- 02-08-15
Franzen without the meat
If you like John Franzen novels, you might get excited as I did toward the beginning when the author introduces many interesting and well thought out characters. The somewhat ironic or at least aloof writing style very Franzen-esque.... The problem with this story though is that there is no point.. There are no lessons learned or really interesting consequences to anything... In fact the author seems to tease us with things that almost go terribly terribly wrong, but nothing ever really does... This family seems to just bounce around through life until the book ends..
Not sure if I could go back in time, would I buy this book.
Narration was great, and admittedly is probably the only reason I made it all the way through it