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Close Quarters
- Narrated by: William Golding
- Length: 7 hrs and 23 mins
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Close Quarters
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Publisher's summary
Lose yourself in an epic naval journey in this Booker Prize-winning novel: the second in the acclaimed Sea Trilogy by the author of Lord of the Flies. Read by the author in 1989, this recording was re-mastered in 2022.
This tropical nowhere was the whole world—the whole imaginable world.
A decrepit warship is becalmed halfway to Australia, stilled in an ocean wilderness of heat and sea mists. In this surreal, fête-like atmosphere, a ball is held with a passing ship: the passengers dance and flirt, while beneath them seaweed like green hair spreads ominously over the hull. Half-mad with fear, drink, love and opium, both vessel and passengers feel themselves going to pieces, and the very planks seem to twist themselves alive as the ship comes apart at the seams....
Critic reviews
"No living writer has represented the fragility of man's experience so marvellously as Golding." (AS Byatt)
"It is in Golding's magnificent, therapeutic, terrifying descriptions of seascapes that the deepest meanings can be found." (Kate Mosse)
''Stunning.... As exciting as any thriller." (Sunday Times)
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- By: C. S. Forester
- Narrated by: Christian Rodska
- Length: 8 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 1,842
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 1,649
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 1,633
Shaking off this label, a shy and lonely 17-year-old, Horatio Hornblower, embarks on a memorable career in Nelson's navy on HMS Justinian. In action, adventure, and battle he is forged into one of the most formidable junior officers in the service.
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5 out of 5 stars
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First rate historical fiction
- By Jason on 04-30-17
By: C. S. Forester
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Burning Bright
- Extraordinaries Series, Book 1
- By: Melissa McShane
- Narrated by: Cat Gould
- Length: 12 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 220
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 197
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 194
Elinor is an Extraordinary and the only one in England capable of wielding fire in over 100 years. As an Extraordinary she is respected and feared, but to her father she represents power and prestige for himself. Mr. Pembroke, having spent his life studying magic, is determined to control Elinor and her talent by forcing her to marry whom he chooses, a marriage that will produce even more powerful offspring.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Amazing story and narration!
- By sweetliks on 07-06-17
By: Melissa McShane
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The Sea Wolf
- By: Jack London
- Narrated by: Will Patton
- Length: 6 hrs and 7 mins
- Abridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 56
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 48
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 49
Jack London worshiped strong and virtuous heroes, and his stories give great weight to the inevitable triumph of good over evil. His telling of the adventures of Humphrey van Weydon in The Sea Wolf is in keeping with this theme of moral man. His powerful and gripping saga of van Weydon's capture by a seal-hunting ship and the ensuing tangles with its dreaded captain, Wolf Larsen, makes this a classic American tale of peril and victory.
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5 out of 5 stars
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I won the lottery!
- By Bill on 08-11-17
By: Jack London
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The Shadow-Line
- By: Joseph Conrad
- Narrated by: Fred Williams
- Length: 4 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 121
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 100
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 100
Written at the start of the Great War, when his son Borys was at the Western Front, The Shadow-Line is Conrad's supreme effort to open man's eyes to the meaning of war through the stimulus of art. In many ways an autobiographical narrative, this masterpiece of his final period relates the story of a young and inexperienced sea captain whose first command finds him with a ship becalmed in tropical seas and a crew smitten with fever.
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4 out of 5 stars
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A Reflexion on Maturity
- By Darwin8u on 01-05-17
By: Joseph Conrad
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The House of the Four Winds
- One Dozen Daughters, Book 1
- By: Mercedes Lackey, James Mallory
- Narrated by: Emily Sutton-Smith
- Length: 10 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 356
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 317
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 318
The rulers of tiny, impoverished Swansgaard have twelve daughters and one son. While the prince’s future is assured, his twelve sisters must find their own fortunes. Disguising herself as Clarence, Princess Clarice intends to sail to the New World. When the crew rebels, Clarice/Clarence, an expert with rapier and dagger, sides with the handsome navigator, Dominick, and kills the cruel captain. Dominick leads the now - outlawed crew in search of treasure in the secret pirate haven known as The House of the Four Winds.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Solid story, but this one is popcorn
- By Phillip on 09-19-14
By: Mercedes Lackey, and others
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Ramage
- The Lord Ramage Novels, Book 1
- By: Dudley Pope
- Narrated by: Steven Crossley
- Length: 11 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 192
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 172
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 171
In a daring foray, under the very nose of the French Mediterranean fleet, Lieutenant Lord Nicholas Ramage is to sail his tiny cutter close in to the Italian shore and rescue a party of stranded aristocrats from Napoleon's fast-advancing army.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Engaging
- By Jean on 10-04-14
By: Dudley Pope
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A High Wind in Jamaica
- By: Richard Hughes
- Narrated by: Michael Maloney
- Length: 6 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 189
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 164
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 164
Set in the 19th century against a backdrop of island life and the vast surrounding seas, A High Wind in Jamaica is the gripping story of the Bas-Thornton children, whose parents send them back to England following a hurricane in the postcolonial Caribbean they call home. Having set sail, the children quickly fall into the hands of pirates. As their voyage continues, things take an awful turn
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5 out of 5 stars
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Prose that reads like a Child's Fever Dream
- By Darwin8u on 01-02-17
By: Richard Hughes
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Sacred Hunger
- By: Barry Unsworth
- Narrated by: David Rintoul
- Length: 22 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 202
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 178
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 176
In this Booker Prize-winning work, Barry Unsworth follows the failing fortunes of William Kemp, a merchant pinning his last chance to a slave ship; his son, who needs a fortune because he is in love with an upper-class woman; and his nephew, who sails on the ship as its doctor because he has lost all he has loved. The voyage meets its demise when disease spreads among the slaves and the captain's drastic response provokes a mutiny.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Wise, Perceptive, Heart-breaking
- By S. Coldsmith on 04-16-16
By: Barry Unsworth
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Flint & Silver
- A Prequel to Treasure Island
- By: John Drake
- Narrated by: Tim Gregory
- Length: 11 hrs and 49 mins
- Abridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 128
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 114
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 114
A swashbuckling triumph of storytelling, Flint and Silver provides a thrilling ride back to the rich and wondrous world of Long John Silver and his fiendish nemesis Joseph Flint in this prequel to the beloved classic Treasure Island.
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4 out of 5 stars
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where are the other two books in the series??
- By Scott Pruitt on 05-31-18
By: John Drake
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Sea of Poppies
- Ibis Trilogy, Book 1
- By: Amitav Ghosh
- Narrated by: Phil Gigante
- Length: 18 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 751
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 515
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 516
At the heart of this vibrant saga is an immense ship, the Ibis. Its destiny is a tumultuous voyage across the Indian Ocean, its purpose to fight China's vicious 19th-century Opium Wars. As for the crew, they are a motley array of sailors and stowaways, coolies and convicts.
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5 out of 5 stars
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ignorance may be bliss
- By Evelyn M Kloepper on 07-27-09
By: Amitav Ghosh
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The Mutiny of the Elsinore
- By: Jack London
- Narrated by: John Bolen
- Length: 11 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 61
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 54
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 53
Life has lost its savor for Mr. Pathurst. New York, fame, women, the arts, have all become tedious. Searching for excitement, he books passage on a cargo vessel sailing from Baltimore to Seattle on a route that travels around the treacherous Cape Horn.
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2 out of 5 stars
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Just can't listen
- By Michael on 06-25-05
By: Jack London
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Badge of Glory
- By: Douglas Reeman
- Narrated by: David Rintoul
- Length: 10 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 31
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 28
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 28
It was an age of empire, an age of contrast, and an age of dramatic change - and one which would determine the destinies of nations as well as of men. Captain Philip Blackwood of the Royal Marines rejoins his ship, HMS Audacious, in August of 1850, anxious to get back into action. "Per Mare - Per Terram" is the marines' motto. In the torturous heat of Africa, where they are sent to stamp out the remaining strongholds of slavery, and later, in the bitter war of the Crimea, Philip Blackwood and his men learn to obey it without question.
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4 out of 5 stars
-
Good story
- By Thomas Crawford on 05-29-23
By: Douglas Reeman
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'Slaves of Sleep' and 'The Masters of Sleep'
- By: L. Ron Hubbard
- Narrated by: Rene Auberjonois
- Length: 5 hrs and 29 mins
- Abridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 37
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 28
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 28
Young, wealthy, and good-looking, Jan Palmer leads the kind of life most of us would die for. He has it all - except for one thing: happiness. Trapped under the weight of his responsibilities to his family, his business, and his life, he wishes only to escape to another world. But you have to be careful what you wish for. Waking out of a deep sleep, Jan finally finds escape - into a living nightmare.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Incredible. Spellbinding. Hubbard is a genius!
- By Freddie Ulan on 07-22-18
By: L. Ron Hubbard
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By the Mast Divided
- John Pearce, Book 1
- By: David Donachie
- Narrated by: Peter Wickham
- Length: 15 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 167
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 108
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 108
London: 1793. Young firebrand John Pearce, on the run from the authorities, is illegally press-ganged from the Pelican tavern into brutal life aboard HMS Brilliant, a frigate on her way to war. In the first few days, Pearce discovers the Navy is a world in which he can prosper. And he is not alone; he is drawn to a group of men who eventually form an exclusive gun crew, the Pelicans, with Pearce their elected leader.
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1 out of 5 stars
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Didn't work for me
- By Michael E on 07-23-08
By: David Donachie
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