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What Is the Grass
- Walt Whitman in My Life
- Narrated by: Jonathan Yen
- Length: 10 hrs and 20 mins
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Publisher's Summary
Mark Doty has always felt haunted by Walt Whitman's bold, perennially new American voice, and by his equally radical claims about body and soul and what it means to be a self. In What Is the Grass, Doty - a poet, a New Yorker, and an American - keeps company with Whitman and his Leaves of Grass, tracing the resonances between his own experience and the legendary poet's life and work.
"What is it then between us?" Whitman asks. In search of an answer, Doty explores spaces - both external and internal - where he finds the poet's ghost. He meditates on desire, love, and the mysterious wellsprings of the poet's enduring work: a radical experience of transformation and enlightenment, queer sexuality, and an obsession with death, as well as unabashed love for a great city and for the fresh, rowdy character of American speech. In riveting close readings threaded with personal memoir and illuminated by awe, Doty reveals the power of Whitman's persistent presence in his life and in the American imagination at large.
How does a voice survive death? What Is the Grass is a conversation across time and space, a study of the astonishment one poet finds in the accomplishment of another, and an attempt to grasp Whitman's deeply hopeful vision of human possibility.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 21
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 19
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Story5 out of 5 stars 19
A memoir of self-discovery and the dilemma of connection in our time, The Odd Woman and the City explores the rhythms, chance encounters, and ever-changing friendships of urban life that forge the sensibility of a fiercely independent woman who has lived out her conflicts, not her fantasies, in a city (New York) that has done the same.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Yet another Gornick masterpiece
- By Lo on 01-14-23
By: Vivian Gornick
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The Art of X-Ray Reading
- How the Secrets of 25 Great Works of Literature Will Improve Your Writing
- By: Roy Peter Clark
- Narrated by: Jefferson Mays
- Length: 8 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 227
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 191
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 187
Where do writers learn their best moves? They use a technique that Roy Peter Clark calls X-ray reading, a form of reading that lets you penetrate beyond the surface of a text to see how meaning is actually being made. In The Art of X-Ray Reading, Clark invites you to don your X-ray reading glasses and join him on a guided tour through some of the most exquisite and masterful literary works of all time, from The Great Gatsby to Lolita to The Bluest Eye and many more.
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5 out of 5 stars
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So Good I Bought the Print Version
- By Jan on 04-25-16
By: Roy Peter Clark
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A Month in Siena
- By: Hisham Matar
- Narrated by: Hisham Matar
- Length: 3 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 38
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 31
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 31
After finishing his powerful memoir The Return, Hisham Matar, seeking solace and pleasure, traveled to Siena, Italy. Always finding comfort and clarity in great art, Matar immersed himself in eight significant works from the Sienese School of painting, which flourished from the 13th to the 15th centuries. Artists he had admired throughout his life, including Duccio and Ambrogio Lorenzetti, evoke earlier engagements he'd had with works by Caravaggio and Poussin, and the personal experiences that surrounded those moments.
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5 out of 5 stars
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An atmospheric ramble (in the best sense!)
- By M. O. on 06-19-21
By: Hisham Matar
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Daemon Voices
- On Stories and Storytelling
- By: Philip Pullman
- Narrated by: Philip Pullman, Simon Mason
- Length: 12 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 197
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 173
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 174
One of the most highly acclaimed and best-selling authors of our time now gives us a book that charts the history of his own enchantment with story - from his own books to those of Blake, Milton, Dickens, and the Brothers Grimm, among others - and delves into the role of story in education, religion, and science. At once personal and wide-ranging, Daemon Voices is both a revelation of the writing mind and the methods of a great contemporary master and a fascinating exploration of storytelling itself.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Mixed views
- By Luna on 08-03-19
By: Philip Pullman
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How Fiction Works
- By: James Wood
- Narrated by: James Adams
- Length: 5 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 125
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 80
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 82
Ranging widely from Homer to David Foster Wallace, from What Maisie Knew to Make Way for Ducklings, Wood takes the reader through the basic elements of the art, step by step. He sums up two decades of insight with wit and concision, resulting in nothing less than a philosophy of the novel, which has won critical acclaim nationwide, from the San Francisco Chronicle to the New York Times Book Review.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Educational!
- By Don on 05-04-09
By: James Wood
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In the Company of Rilke
- Why a 20th-Century Visionary Poet Speaks So Eloquently to 21st-Century Readers
- By: Stephanie Dowrick
- Narrated by: Stephanie Dowrick
- Length: 12 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 49
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 38
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Story5 out of 5 stars 36
Rainer Maria Rilke was a giant of twentieth-century writing who remains a rare visionary voice for our own time. This audio edition of Dr. Stephanie Dowrick's acclaimed book allows you literally to "hear" how and why Rilke's extraordinary words continue to captivate readers, not least through his profound understanding of the depth and beauty of human existence.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Delicately & Nobly Written ....
- By Essam Rajab on 12-20-15
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Feel Free
- Essays
- By: Zadie Smith
- Narrated by: Nikki Amuka-Bird
- Length: 13 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 219
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 194
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 190
Since she burst spectacularly into view with her debut novel almost two decades ago, Zadie Smith has established herself not just as one of the world's preeminent fiction writers but also a brilliant and singular essayist. She contributes regularly to The New Yorker and the New York Review of Books on a range of subjects, and each piece of hers is a literary event in its own right.
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5 out of 5 stars
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great material, thoroughly brilliant narration
- By Mary E. Magin on 03-09-18
By: Zadie Smith
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Devotion
- By: Patti Smith
- Narrated by: Patti Smith
- Length: 2 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 125
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 105
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 105
How does an artist accomplish such an achievement, connecting deeply with an audience never met? In this groundbreaking book, one of our culture's beloved artists offers a detailed account of her own creative process, inspirations, and unexpected connections. Patti Smith first presents an original and beautifully crafted tale of obsession - a young skater who lives for her art, a possessive collector who ruthlessly seeks his prize, a relationship forged of need both craven and exalted. She then takes us on a second journey, exploring the sources of her story.
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5 out of 5 stars
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No Disappointment Here
- By Roger L. Walraven on 06-11-18
By: Patti Smith
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The Book of Disquiet
- By: Fernando Pessoa
- Narrated by: Adam Sims
- Length: 17 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 108
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 94
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 93
Assembled from notes and jottings left unpublished at the time of the author’s death, The Book of Disquiet is a collection of aphoristic prose-poetry musings on dreams, solitude, time and memory. Credited to Pessoa’s alter ego, Bernardo Soares, who chronicles his contemplations in this so-called "factless" autobiography, the work is a journey of one man’s soul and, by extension, of all human souls that allow their minds and hearts to roam far and free.
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5 out of 5 stars
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The book that saved my life
- By Hutchinson on 03-09-21
By: Fernando Pessoa
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Henry Miller on Writing
- By: Henry Miller
- Narrated by: Ian Patrick Mendes
- Length: 8 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 30
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 24
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Story5 out of 5 stars 24
Some of the most rewarding pages in Henry Miller's books concern his self-education as a writer. He tells, as few great writers ever have, how he set his goals, how he discovered the excitement of using words, how the books he read influenced him, and how he learned to draw on his own experience.
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5 out of 5 stars
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learn how to say lao tzu
- By Pinklotuspolo on 11-18-22
By: Henry Miller
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He Held Radical Light
- The Art of Faith, the Faith of Art
- By: Christian Wiman
- Narrated by: John Lescault
- Length: 3 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 22
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 22
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 22
Christian Wiman explores the relationships between art and faith, death and fame, heaven and oblivion. Above all, He Held Radical Light is a love letter to poetry, filled with moving, surprising, and sometimes funny encounters with the poets Wiman has known.
By: Christian Wiman
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Dancing at the Edge of the World
- Thoughts on Words, Women, Places
- By: Ursula K. Le Guin
- Narrated by: Gabrielle de Cuir
- Length: 14 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 91
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 78
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 77
From modern literature to menopause, from utopian thought to rodeos - in this classic collection of essays, Ursula K. Le Guin roves with her customary audacity over the intersecting arenas of literature, feminism, and social responsibility, exploding any received notions she comes across and revealing visionary possibilities in their stead.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Not my favorite Le Guin collection, but...
- By Cameron on 05-11-19
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Recollections of My Nonexistence
- A Memoir
- By: Rebecca Solnit
- Narrated by: Rebecca Solnit
- Length: 6 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 162
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 133
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 132
In Recollections of My Nonexistence, Rebecca Solnit describes her formation as a writer and as a feminist in 1980s San Francisco, in an atmosphere of gender violence on the street and throughout society and the exclusion of women from cultural arenas. She tells of being poor, hopeful, and adrift in the city that became her great teacher, and of the small apartment that, when she was 19, became the home in which she transformed herself. She explores the forces that liberated her as a person and as a writer.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Observant, organized, and real...
- By Jesse Rolfer on 03-25-20
By: Rebecca Solnit
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Artful
- By: Ali Smith
- Narrated by: Ali Smith
- Length: 4 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 31
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 28
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 29
In 2012, Ali Smith delivered the Weidenfeld lectures on European comparative literature at St. Anne’s College, Oxford. Those lectures, presented here, took the shape of discursive stories that refused to be tied down to either fiction or the essay form. Thus, Artful is narrated by a character who is haunted - literally - by a former lover, the writer of a series of lectures about art and literature. A hypnotic dialogue unfolds between storytelling and a meditation on art that encompasses love, grief, memory, and revitalization.
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3 out of 5 stars
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#Reality/Loss/Mythology
- By Ellen K. on 11-14-18
By: Ali Smith
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The Medieval Mind of C.S. Lewis
- How Great Books Shaped a Great Mind
- By: Jason M Baxter
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 5 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 63
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 54
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Story5 out of 5 stars 54
C. S. Lewis had one of the great minds of the 20th century. Many know Lewis as an author of fiction and fantasy literature, including the Chronicles of Narnia and the Space Trilogy. Others know him for his books in apologetics, including Mere Christianity and The Problem of Pain. But few know him for his scholarly work as a professor of medieval and Renaissance literature. What shaped the mind of this great thinker?
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5 out of 5 stars
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Excellent
- By andrew wilson smith on 03-08-22
By: Jason M Baxter