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Cane
- Narrated by: Sean Crisden
- Length: 6 hrs and 49 mins
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Publisher's summary
First published in 1923, Jean Toomer's Cane is an innovative literary work powerfully evoking black life in the South. Rich in imagery, Toomer's impressionistic, sometimes surrealistic sketches of Southern rural and urban life are permeated by visions of smoke, sugarcane, dusk, and fire; the northern world is pictured as a harsher reality of asphalt streets. This iconic work of American literature is published with a new afterword by Rudolph Byrd of Emory University and Henry Louis Gates Jr. of Harvard University, who provide groundbreaking biographical information on Toomer, place his writing within the context of American modernism and the Harlem Renaissance, and examine his shifting claims about his own race and his pioneering critique of race as a scientific or biological concept.
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On a farm in western Missouri, during the first half of the twentieth century, Matthew and Callie Soames create a life for themselves and raise four headstrong daughters. Jessica will break their hearts. Leonie will fall in love with the wrong man. Mary Jo will escape to New York. And wild child Mathy’s fate will be the family’s greatest tragedy. Over the decades they will love, deceive, comfort, forgive - and, ultimately, they will come to cherish all the more fiercely the bonds of love that hold the family together.
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I didn't want it to end!!!
- By Amanda H. on 01-20-21
By: Jetta Carleton
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Collected Stories of William Faulkner
- By: William Faulkner
- Narrated by: Paul Boehmer, Susan Denaker, Scott Brick, and others
- Length: 31 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
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This magisterial collection of short works by Nobel Prize-winning author William Faulkner reminds listeners of his ability to compress his epic vision into narratives as hard and wounding as bullets. Among the 42 selections in this audiobook are such classics as "A Bear Hunt", "A Rose for Emily", "Two Soldiers", and "The Brooch".
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Audiobook Table of Contents (by Chapter)
- By Anonymous User on 09-27-20
By: William Faulkner
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Uncle Tom's Children
- By: Richard Wright
- Narrated by: Adam Lazarre-White
- Length: 9 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
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Originally published in 1938, Uncle Tom's Children, a collection of novellas, was the first book from Richard Wright, who would go on to win international renown for his powerful and visceral depiction of the Black experience. Set in the American Deep South, each of the powerful and devastating stories in Uncle Tom's Children concerns an aspect of the lives of Black people in the post-slavery era, exploring their resistance to white racism and oppression. The collection also includes a personal essay by Wright titled "The Ethics of Living Jim Crow."
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I am Speechless, Absolutely Breath Taking!,
- By Lisalisa on 09-26-20
By: Richard Wright
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Dandelion Wine
- By: Ray Bradbury
- Narrated by: David Aaron Baker
- Length: 8 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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Twelve-year-old Douglas Spaulding knows Green Town, Illinois, is as vast and deep as the whole wide world that lies beyond the city limits. It is a pair of brand-new tennis shoes, the first harvest of dandelions for Grandfather's renowned intoxicant, the distant clang of the trolley's bell on a hazy afternoon. It is yesteryear and tomorrow blended into an unforgettable always. But as young Douglas is about to discover, summer can be more than the repetition of established rituals whose mystical power holds time at bay.
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Turn to wonder and remember childhood summers
- By April Rose on 06-26-19
By: Ray Bradbury
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The Lost Country
- By: William Gay
- Narrated by: T. Ryder Smith
- Length: 15 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
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Billy Edgewater is a harbinger of doom. Estranged from his family, discharged from the navy and touched by a rising desperation, he sets out hitchhiking home to East Tennessee, where his father is slowly dying. On the road, separately, are Sudy and Bradshaw, brother and sister, and a one-armed con man named Roosterfish. All, in one way or another, have their pasts and futures embroiled with D. L. Harkness, a predator in all the ways there are.
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One of the finest novels I have read!
- By Donald B. Eager on 09-06-21
By: William Gay
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Delta Wedding
- A Novel
- By: Eudora Welty
- Narrated by: Sally Darling
- Length: 12 hrs
- Unabridged
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Set on the Mississippi Delta in 1923, this story captures the mind and manners of the Fairchilds, a large aristocratic family, self-contained and elusive as the wind. The vagaries of the Fairchilds are keenly observed, and sometimes harshly judged, by nine-year-old Laura McRaven, a Fairchild cousin who takes The Yellow Dog train to the Delta for Dabney Fairchild’s wedding.
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Soul Food
- By Carolyn on 03-06-13
By: Eudora Welty
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Going to Meet the Man
- By: James Baldwin
- Narrated by: Dion Graham
- Length: 7 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
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"There's no way not to suffer. But you try all kinds of ways to keep from drowning in it." The men and women in these eight short fictions grasp this truth on an elemental level, and their stories, as told by James Baldwin, detail the ingenious and often desperate ways in which they try to keep their heads above water.
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Punch in the gut
- By Rebecca on 05-08-17
By: James Baldwin
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The October Country
- By: Ray Bradbury
- Narrated by: David Aaron Baker
- Length: 10 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
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Haunting, harrowing, and downright horrifying, this classic collection from the modern master of the fantastic features: "The Small Assassin": a fine, healthy baby boy was the new mother's dream come true - or her nightmare.... "The Emissary": the faithful dog was the sick boy's only connection with the world outside - and beyond.... "The Wonderful Death of Dudley Stone": a most remarkable case of murder - the deceased was delighted! And more!
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The October Country
- By steven richard pohl on 09-17-19
By: Ray Bradbury
What listeners say about Cane
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- A. Yerkes
- 02-28-13
Well-Executed Classic
This audiobook is a perfect example of how to artfully narrate a classic, and I was delighted to see it offered on audio. The reader gets the accents right, can pronounce everything he has to, and more importantly hits the perfect tone, not overacting the dialogue or injecting pathos, which lesser readers would be tempted to do. Instead, there's a restraint to the narration, which makes the few places where he does indulge a character voice, such as the super-bad King Barlo in the "Esther" story, all the more impactful. I found myself easily slipping into Toomer's imagistic trance, not pulled out by any affectations of delivery. Bravo Sean Crisden!
It should be noted that this is a complex, experimental book that rewards rereading. I'm not sure if listening is the way to go if it's your first time through, but as someone who has read and reread this book over the years, I loved hearing this audio version. It took me deeper into the text that reading alone has. I found the reader especially good with the poetry, where again the reader resisted over-emoting. The last section, Kabnis is a bit plodding, as it is written like a play, and the narrative doesn't always flow. But this is no fault of the reader; it's the text as Toomer wrote it.
Too often, classic, challenging works are severely botched in their audio versions. I hope producers and actors will follow the example that this one sets.
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- Jonathan
- 03-26-13
When Robots Read, and I'm a Fan of Robots...
Toomer's CANE contains some of the most musical language in Black lit. So musical in fact that Gil Scott-Heron put it to music in the late seventies. This reader erases every trace of music from the text. It's virtually unlistenable. I don't imagine I'll buy anything else read by this narrator.
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