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The Boys of My Youth
- Narrated by: Jo Ann Beard
- Length: 7 hrs and 53 mins
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The Boys of My Youth
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Publisher's summary
Rarely does the debut of a new writer garner such attention and acclaim. The excitement began the moment "The Fourth State of Matter", one of the 14 extraordinary personal narratives in this book, appeared in the pages of The New Yorker. It increased when the author received a prestigious Whiting Foundation Award in November 1997, and it continued as the hardcover edition of The Boys of My Youth sold out its first printing even before publication. The author writes with perfect pitch as she takes us through one woman's life - from childhood to marriage and beyond - and memorably captures the collision of youthful longing and the hard intransigencies of time and fate.
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-
Story4 out of 5 stars 265
There's something eerily unsettling about Ottessa Moshfegh's stories, something almost dangerous, while also being delightful and even laugh-out-loud funny. Her characters are all unsteady on their feet in one way or another; they all yearn for connection and betterment, though each in very different ways, but they are often tripped up by their own baser impulses and existential insecurities.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Funny, Dynamic Writing
- By Sofia Macht on 06-13-18
By: Ottessa Moshfegh
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The Lost Family
- A Novel
- By: Jenna Blum
- Narrated by: Will Damron
- Length: 14 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 101
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 93
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Story4 out of 5 stars 92
In 1965 Manhattan, patrons flock to Masha’s to savor its brisket bourguignon and impeccable service and to admire its dashing owner and head chef Peter Rashkin, the most eligible bachelor in town. But Peter does not care for the parade of eligible women who come to the restaurant hoping to catch his eye. Running Masha’s consumes him, as does his terrible guilt over surviving the horrors of the Nazi death camp while his wife, Masha - the restaurant’s namesake - and two young daughters perished. Then exquisitely beautiful June Bouquet, an up-and-coming young model, appears at the restaurant, piercing Peter’s guard.
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5 out of 5 stars
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STIMULATES THE HEART, MIND AND IMAGINATION
- By Miss Manners on 07-01-18
By: Jenna Blum
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Fruit of the Drunken Tree
- A Novel
- By: Ingrid Rojas Contreras
- Narrated by: Marisol Ramirez, Almarie Guerra, Ingrid Rojas Contreras
- Length: 12 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 635
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 567
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 565
Seven-year-old Chula and her older sister, Cassandra, enjoy carefree lives thanks to their gated community in Bogotá, but the threat of kidnappings, car bombs, and assassinations hover just outside the neighborhood walls, where the godlike drug lord Pablo Escobar continues to elude authorities and capture the attention of the nation. When their mother hires Petrona, a live-in-maid from the city's guerrilla-occupied slum, Chula makes it her mission to understand Petrona's mysterious ways.
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2 out of 5 stars
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Maybe better to read this book than listen???
- By Amazon Customer on 12-12-18
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Children Playing Before a Statue of Hercules (Unabridged Selections)
- By: Edited by David Sedaris
- Narrated by: David Sedaris, Mary-Louise Parker, Cherry Jones
- Length: 2 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 359
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 216
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Story4 out of 5 stars 217
Children Playing Before a Statue of Hercules is a collection of short stories, some classic, others impending, selected and introduced by David Sedaris.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Great stories but only 5 of 17 are included
- By Terri Kirk on 07-13-12
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Battleborn
- By: Claire Vaye Watkins
- Narrated by: Ali Ahn, Morgan Hallett, Laura Knight Keating, and others
- Length: 8 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 50
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 40
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 39
Like the work of Cormac McCarthy, Denis Johnson, Richard Ford, and Annie Proulx, Battleborn represents a near-perfect confluence of sensibility and setting, and the introduction of an exceptionally powerful and original literary voice. In each of these ten unforgettable stories, Claire Vaye Watkins writes her way fearlessly into the mythology of the American West, utterly reimagining it.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Wonderful magnificent stories beautifully told
- By Pedro Ramirez on 12-03-15
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A Girl Named Zippy
- Growing Up Small in Mooreland, Indiana
- By: Haven Kimmel
- Narrated by: Haven Kimmel
- Length: 6 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 545
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 378
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 382
When Haven Kimmel was born in 1965, Mooreland, Indiana, was a sleepy little hamlet of 300 people. Nicknamed "Zippy" for the way she would bolt around the house, this small girl was possessed of big eyes and even bigger ears. In this witty and lovingly told memoir, Kimmel takes readers back to a time when small-town America was caught in the amber of the innocent postwar period - people helped their neighbors, went to church on Sunday, and kept barnyard animals in their backyards.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Beautifully written, beautifully read.
- By shopgirl on 03-06-08
By: Haven Kimmel
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Wonder Boys
- By: Michael Chabon
- Narrated by: David Colacci
- Length: 11 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 740
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 660
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Story4 out of 5 stars 660
A wildly successful first novel made Grady Tripp a young star, and seven years later he still hasn't grown up. He's now a writing professor in Pittsburgh, plummeting through middle age, stuck with an unfinishable manuscript, an estranged wife, a pregnant girlfriend, and a talented but deeply disturbed student named James Leer.
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4 out of 5 stars
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A strong, early Chabon (sounds like grading wine)
- By Darwin8u on 03-09-14
By: Michael Chabon
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Our Little Secret
- By: Roz Nay
- Narrated by: Erin Moon
- Length: 6 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 103
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 95
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Story4 out of 5 stars 95
Angela is being held in a police interrogation room. Her ex's wife has gone missing, and Detective Novak is sure Angela knows something, despite her claim that she's not involved. At Novak's prodding, Angela tells a story going back 10 years, explaining how she met and fell in love with her high school friend HP. But as her past unfolds, she reveals a disconcerting love triangle and a dark, tangled web of betrayals. Is Angela a scorned ex-lover with criminal intent? Or a pawn in someone else's revenge scheme?
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5 out of 5 stars
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Amazing
- By lisa on 12-31-19
By: Roz Nay
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She's Come Undone
- By: Wally Lamb
- Narrated by: Linda Stephens
- Length: 18 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 2,089
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 1,817
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 1,833
Meet Dolores Price. She's 13, wise-mouthed but wounded, having bid her childhood goodbye. Beached like a whale in front of her bedroom TV, she spends the next few years nourishing herself with the Mallomars, potato chips, and Pepsi her anxious mother supplies. When she finally rolls into young womanhood at 257 pounds, Dolores is no stronger and life is no kinder. But this time she's determined to rise to the occasion and give herself one more chance before really going belly-up.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Really disappointing narrator!
- By Jessica Williams on 01-21-12
By: Wally Lamb
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Among the Lesser Gods
- By: Margo Catts
- Narrated by: Cynthia Farrell
- Length: 11 hrs and 9 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
Elena Alvarez is living a cursed life. From the deadly fire she accidentally set as a child to her mother's abandonment and now an unwanted pregnancy, she knows better than most that small actions can have terrible consequences. Yet when her grandmother calls and asks her to watch over the children of a recent widower in a small, isolated town in Colorado, she takes it as a chance to finally organize her life.
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2 out of 5 stars
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Without a doubt...
- By RueRue on 10-07-19
By: Margo Catts
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The Center of Everything
- By: Laura Moriarty
- Narrated by: Julie Dretzin
- Length: 13 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 119
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 104
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Story4 out of 5 stars 102
The Center of Everything is the fictional story of 10-year-old math prodigy Evelyn Bucknow. Living in Kansas with her single mother and deeply religious grandmother, Evelyn believes she is destined to marry Travis, the boy next door. But as she grows up, she experiences the heartbreak of a love not meant to be. Author Laura Moriarty was a recipient of the George Bennet Fellowship for Creative Writing at Phillips Exeter Academy.
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1 out of 5 stars
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not religious fiction
- By Theresa Jameson on 04-28-14
By: Laura Moriarty
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Turtle Moon
- By: Alice Hoffman
- Narrated by: Sandra Burr
- Length: 7 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 130
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 109
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Story4 out of 5 stars 109
Turtle Moon transports the listener to Verity, Florida, a place where anything can happen during the month of May, when migrating sea turtles come to town, mistaking the glow of the streetlights for the moon. A young single mother is murdered in her apartment and her baby is gone. Keith, a 12-year-old boy in the same apartment building also disappears. In pursuit of the baby, the boy and the killer, are Keith's divorced mother and a cop who himself was once considered the meanest boy in town.
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5 out of 5 stars
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An enchanting story
- By A.J. on 05-09-11
By: Alice Hoffman
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The Green Glass Sea
- By: Ellen Klages
- Narrated by: Julie Dretzin
- Length: 7 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 141
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 114
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 117
This first novel from Nebula Award-winning short story writer Ellen Klages was picked as a Junior Library Guild selection and named a Book Sense Number-One Children's Pick. It follows a young girl named Dewey, whose father is part of a super-secret project in 1943 Los Alamos. Dewey, a gifted scientist herself, slowly realizes the implications of "the gadget" her father is working on. She and Suze, another Los Alamos child, find comfort in each other's friendship.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Wonderful!
- By Rita on 12-08-08
By: Ellen Klages
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Rabbit, Run
- By: John Updike
- Narrated by: Arthur Morey
- Length: 12 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 908
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 662
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Story4 out of 5 stars 663
Rabbit, Run is the book that established John Updike as one of the major American novelists of his - or any other - generation. Its hero is Harry “Rabbit” Angstrom, a onetime high-school basketball star who on an impulse deserts his wife and son. He is 26 years old, a man-child caught in a struggle between instinct and thought, self and society, sexual gratification and family duty - even, in a sense, human hard-heartedness, and divine Grace. Though his flight from home traces a zigzag of evasion, he holds to the faith that he is on the right path.
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5 out of 5 stars
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A Thinking Man's Novel
- By L. Berlyne on 01-12-09
By: John Updike
What listeners say about The Boys of My Youth
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall3 out of 5 stars
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Performance2 out of 5 stars
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Story3 out of 5 stars
- Michael
- 12-15-18
Meh
Ultimately this audiobook ends up being meh with a meh performance and meh story. Excellent level of craft put to meh and subdued purposes.
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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
- Elaine Hunyadi
- 08-19-24
Compelling narrative
Jo Ann Beard is one of my most my favorite writers. Poetic, thoughtful, honest funny, and dead serious, too. If you were a young woman growing up in the 60’s and 70’s, you will find yourself delightfully transported back in time. Thanks for another great read!
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