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American Sonnets for My Past and Future Assassin
- Narrated by: Terrance Hayes
- Length: 1 hr and 18 mins
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American Sonnets for My Past and Future Assassin
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Publisher's summary
A powerful, timely, dazzling collection of sonnets from one of America's most acclaimed poets, Terrance Hayes, the National Book Award-winning author of Lighthead.
In 70 poems bearing the same title, Terrance Hayes explores the meanings of American, of assassin, and of love in the sonnet form. Written during the first two hundred days of the Trump presidency, these poems are haunted by the country's past and future eras and errors, its dreams and nightmares. Inventive, compassionate, hilarious, melancholy, and bewildered - the wonders of this new collection are irreducible and stunning.
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 72
Of Kenya's largest ethnic group, the Kikuyu, Ngugi wa Thiongo was born in 1938 in the backlands of his country (Kiambu district) to a father whose four wives bore him two dozen or so children. Ngugi was the fifth child of the third wife. His father was a peasant farmer forced to become a squatter after the British Imperial Act of 1915. Before going off to school, he had what was then considered a bizarre and inexplicable thirst for learning....
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4 out of 5 stars
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An escape through education
- By Tango on 06-17-12
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A Little Devil in America
- Notes in Praise of Black Performance
- By: Hanif Abdurraqib
- Narrated by: JD Jackson
- Length: 9 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 235
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 202
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Story5 out of 5 stars 201
“I was a devil in other countries, and I was a little devil in America, too.” Inspired by these few words, spoken by Josephine Baker at the 1963 March on Washington, MacArthur “Genius Grant” Fellow and best-selling author Hanif Abdurraqib has written a profound and lasting reflection on how Black performance is inextricably woven into the fabric of American culture. Filled with sharp insight, humor, and heart, A Little Devil in America exalts the Black performance that unfolds in specific moments in time and space
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5 out of 5 stars
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Magical
- By Mary A. Ardoin on 05-11-21
By: Hanif Abdurraqib
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Breathe
- A Letter to My Sons
- By: Imani Perry
- Narrated by: Imani Perry
- Length: 4 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 111
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 97
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Story5 out of 5 stars 95
Breathe explores the terror, grace, and beauty of coming of age as a Black person in contemporary America and what it means to parent our children in a persistently unjust world. Emotionally raw and deeply reflective, Imani Perry issues an unflinching challenge to society to see Black children as deserving of humanity. She admits fear and frustration for her African-American sons in a society that is increasingly racist and at times seems irredeemable. However, as a mother, feminist, writer, and intellectual, Perry offers an unfettered expression of love.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Delightful peek into the heart & soul of a mother
- By Treesey on 10-08-19
By: Imani Perry
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Unforgetting
- A Memoir of Family, Migration, Gangs, and Revolution in the Americas
- By: Roberto Lovato
- Narrated by: Roberto Lovato
- Length: 8 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 93
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 77
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Story5 out of 5 stars 76
An urgent, no-holds-barred tale of gang life, guerrilla warfare, intergenerational trauma, and interconnected violence between the United States and El Salvador, Roberto Lovato’s memoir excavates family history and reveals the intimate stories beneath headlines about gang violence and mass Central American migration, one of the most important, yet least-understood humanitarian crises of our time - and one in which the perspectives of Central Americans in the United States have been silenced and forgotten.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Difficult to hear but important to know.
- By M. Lindquist on 12-18-20
By: Roberto Lovato
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The Double Life of Pocahontas
- By: Jean Fritz
- Narrated by: Melissa Hughes
- Length: 2 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 113
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 95
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 94
Native American princess or British celebrity? Pocahontas played a pivotal role in the New World, but the powerful pull between her tribe and the new settlement on Virginia's shores took its toll.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Who is Pocahontas?
- By Kelbie on 10-25-20
By: Jean Fritz
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Black Boy
- By: Richard Wright
- Narrated by: Peter Francis James
- Length: 15 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 373
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 328
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Story5 out of 5 stars 327
Richard Wright's powerful and eloquent memoir of his journey from innocence to experience in the Jim Crow South. At once an unashamed confession and a profound indictment, Black Boy is a poignant record of struggle and endurance - a seminal literary work that illuminates our own time. The once controversial, now classic American autobiography measures the brutality and rawness of the Jim Crow South against the sheer desperate will it took to survive as a Black boy. Seventy-five years later, his words continue to reverberate.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Outstanding
- By Trevin Harvey on 11-11-20
By: Richard Wright
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Who Killed My Father
- By: Édouard Louis
- Narrated by: Edouard Louis
- Length: 1 hr and 39 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 34
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 31
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Story5 out of 5 stars 31
Who Killed My Father rips into France’s long neglect of the working class and its overt contempt for the poor, accusing the complacent French - at the minimum - of negligent homicide. The author goes to visit the ugly gray town of his childhood to see his dying father, barely 50 years old, who can hardly walk or breathe: “You belong to the category of humans whom politics consigns to an early death.” It’s as simple as that.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Powerful. Poetic. Sparse. Piercing.
- By Theophile Jones on 06-01-23
By: Édouard Louis
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Mercy Among the Children
- A Novel
- By: David Adams Richards
- Narrated by: Bernard Clark
- Length: 13 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 48
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 45
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Story4 out of 5 stars 45
Sydney Henderson is a truly great man. As a young man, Sydney, believing he has accidentally killed a friend, makes a pact with God, promising never to harm another if the boy's life is spared. In the years that follow, the almost pathologically gentle Sydney holds true to his promise - at terrible cost to himself and his family. Stunningly beautiful and haunting, scenes from this magisterial novel will remain etched in the mind forever.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Epic story
- By jhar14 on 06-04-22
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A Death in the Rainforest
- How a Language and a Way of Life Came to an End in Papua New Guinea
- By: Don Kulick
- Narrated by: Paul Woodson
- Length: 8 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 49
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 42
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 41
Renowned linguistic anthropologist Don Kulick first went to study the tiny jungle village of Gapun in New Guinea over 30 years ago to document how it was that their native language, Tayap, was dying. But you can't study a language without settling in among the people, understanding how they speak every day, and even more, how they live. This book takes us inside the village as Kulick came to know it, revealing what it is like to live in a difficult-to-get-to village of 200 people, carved out like a cleft in the middle of a swamp, in the middle of a tropical rainforest.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Outstanding
- By Shipwrecked on 07-29-20
By: Don Kulick
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Mesoamerican Mythology
- Fascinating Myths and Legends of Gods, Goddesses, Heroes and Monster from the Ancient Maya, Inca and Aztec Mythology
- By: Simon Lopez
- Narrated by: Neil Hamilton
- Length: 5 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 45
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 41
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 42
Do you know that the Mayans believed that the Earth was flat with four poles supporting the sky? Or that the Inca Emperors were thought to be the direct descendant of the sun god himself? The early Mesoamericans were a mysterious bunch. In this audiobook we will dive deep into their world of Myths and captivating stories of the creation of the world, adventures of heroes and even love stories between goddess and mortal.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Modern Twist
- By A. Capps on 12-27-19
By: Simon Lopez
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Black Sunday
- A Novel
- By: Tola Rotimi Abraham
- Narrated by: Liz Femi, Dele Ogundiran, Miebaka Yohannes, and others
- Length: 7 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 43
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 39
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Story4 out of 5 stars 39
Twin sisters Bibike and Ariyike are enjoying a relatively comfortable life in Lagos in 1996. Then their mother loses her job due to political strife, and the family, facing poverty, is drawn into the New Church, an institution led by a charismatic pastor who is not shy about worshipping earthly wealth. Soon Bibike and Ariyike's father wagers the family home on a sure bet that evaporates like smoke.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Good Story - Awful accents
- By Tamara C-J on 02-15-21
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Life of a Klansman
- A Family History in White Supremacy
- By: Edward Ball
- Narrated by: Edward Ball
- Length: 15 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 90
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 79
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 78
Life of a Klansman tells the story of a warrior in the Ku Klux Klan, a carpenter in Louisiana who took up the cause of fanatical racism during the years after the Civil War. Edward Ball, a descendant of the Klansman, paints a portrait of his family’s anti-Black militant that is part history, part memoir rich in personal detail.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Thought Provoking, But . . .
- By William G. Stuart on 09-01-20
By: Edward Ball
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A Child's History of the World
- By: V. M. Hillyer
- Narrated by: Jason Damron
- Length: 10 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 49
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 30
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 30
One of the finest history books for children, this well-loved Hillyer classic features stories of world history from prehistoric man through the 20th century, inspiring an appreciation of how events relate to one another.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Why has this book been changed?
- By Carol on 02-21-21
By: V. M. Hillyer
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The Philosophy of Modern Song
- By: Bob Dylan
- Narrated by: Bob Dylan, Jeff Bridges, Steve Buscemi, and others
- Length: 6 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 257
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 219
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 216
Dylan, who began working on the book in 2010, offers his insight into the nature of popular music. He writes over sixty essays focusing on songs by other artists, spanning from Stephen Foster to Elvis Costello, and in between ranging from Hank Williams to Nina Simone. He analyzes what he calls the trap of easy rhymes, breaks down how the addition of a single syllable can diminish a song, and even explains how bluegrass relates to heavy metal. These essays are written in Dylan’s unique prose. And while ostensibly about music, they are really meditations on the human condition.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Needs chapter headings
- By kaon on 12-22-22
By: Bob Dylan
What listeners say about American Sonnets for My Past and Future Assassin
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
- Brendan Flanagan
- 07-10-24
As relevant today as ever.
Terrance Hayes is the poetic voice of a moment that transcends time and can be felt at any point in American history, including today.
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Abby
- 03-13-23
Error
The collection itself is fantastic. However the audiobook contains an error—Sonnet 9 is missing and what is in the audiobook as Sonnet 9 is just Sonnet 7 again.
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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
- olivia glass
- 08-06-20
Genius ! Genuine!
WOW! Everything about this work is phenomenal! Beyond boundaries and limitation of words! Thank you!
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1 person found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- Tom
- 11-20-20
Stream of Black Consciousness
A tour of the inside of a Angry Black Man’s Mind and Heart that must be heard over and over again to digest the meaning of every well-chosen word and phrase.
It deserves Five Stars. I gave the Story Component only Four due to my inability to grasp some of the Sonnets, though the language was so great that I went back again and again. Take a chance on this Poet and read his other works.
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