A Wonderful Stroke of Luck
A Novel
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A Wonderful Stroke of Luck
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Narrated by:
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Kirby Heyborne
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By:
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Ann Beattie
About this listen
Named a most anticipated book of 2019 by Vulture, The Millions, The Observer, and O, The Oprah Magazine
A razor-sharp, deeply felt new novel - the 21st book by Ann Beattie - about the complicated relationship between a charismatic teacher and his students, and the secrets we keep from those we love.
At a boarding school in New Hampshire, Ben joins the honor society led by Pierre LaVerdere, an enigmatic, brilliant, yet perverse teacher who instructs his students not only about how to reason, but how to prevaricate. As the years go by, LaVerdere's covert and overt instruction lingers in his students' lives as they seek some sense of purpose or meaning. When Ben feels the pace of his life accelerating and views his intimate relationships as less and less fulfilling, there seems to be a subtext he's not able to access. And what, really, did Bailey Academy teach him?
While relationships with his stepmother and sister improve, and a move to upstate New York offers respite from his anxiety about love and work, LaVerdere's reappearance in his life disturbs his equilibrium. Everything he once thought he knew about his teacher - and himself - is called into question.
Written by one of our most iconic writers, known for casting a cold eye on her generation's ambivalence and sometimes mistaken ambition, A Wonderful Stroke of Luck is a keenly observed psychological study of a man who alternates between careful driving and hazardous risk taking, as he struggles to incorporate his past into the vertiginous present.
©2019 Ann Beattie (P)2019 Penguin AudioListeners also enjoyed...
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"Even if you're not old enough to remember the thrill of reading Beattie's first-ever story to be published in The New Yorker, you'll find that the short fiction master's latest foray into long form is a marvel of wry wit and wisdom." (Oprah Magazine)
“Ms. Beattie captures the exhilarating feeling of being young and gifted and specially selected for stardom, but the bulk of her novel is about the long anticlimax that is real life.... This is Ms. Beattie’s first novel since 2002, but readers of her short stories will be fully at home with its discursive style... The effect is a radical decentering that comes near to conveying the essential disorientation of experience.” (Sam Sacks, The Wall Street Journal)
"How do our charismatic teachers set the stage for the rest of our lives? That's one of the questions that Ann Beattie tackles in this novel. When a former New England boarding school student named Ben looks back on his childhood, he starts to question the motives of his superstar teacher. Later on, his teacher gets in contact, and Ben has to grapple with his legacy." (The Millions)
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By: Jay McInerney
-
May We Be Forgiven
- By: A. M. Homes
- Narrated by: Andy Paris
- Length: 20 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 167
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 146
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Story4 out of 5 stars 145
May We Be Forgiven, a darkly comic novel of 21st-century domestic life, stars Harold Silver, a historian who's always been jealous of his successful brother, George. But when the hot-tempered George is institutionalized for committing a violent act, Harold finds himself comforting his brother's wife and children. What follows is a scathing examination of a family so fractured it may never be whole again.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Give this one a try!
- By JWB on 02-13-13
By: A. M. Homes
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I Hate Everyone, Except You
- By: Clinton Kelly
- Narrated by: Clinton Kelly
- Length: 4 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 463
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 404
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 402
Clinton Kelly is probably best known for teaching women how to make their butts look smaller. But in I Hate Everyone, Except You, he reveals some heretofore unknown secrets about himself, like that he's a finicky connoisseur of 1980s pornography, a disillusioned critic of New Jersey's premier water parks, and perhaps the world's least enthused high school commencement speaker.
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1 out of 5 stars
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Filthy language overshadowed stories
- By Doris on 04-29-17
By: Clinton Kelly
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God-Shaped Hole
- A Novel
- By: Tiffanie DeBartolo
- Narrated by: Rachael Warren
- Length: 10 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 132
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 124
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Story4 out of 5 stars 123
When Beatrice Trixie Jordan replies to a personal ad, she meets Jacob Grace, a charming, effervescent 30-something free-spirit writer passionately seeking life. He possesses his own turns of phrase and ways of thinking and feeling that dissonantly harmonize with Trixie's off-center vision. As they rollercoaster through the joys and furies of their wrenching romance, they try to come to terms with the hurt brought about by both of their distant fathers who, in different ways, forsook them.
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5 out of 5 stars
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To see a fortune teller or not to see one...
- By Renee on 08-08-18
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Bettyville
- By: George Hodgman
- Narrated by: Jeff Woodman
- Length: 10 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 371
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 332
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Story4 out of 5 stars 332
When George Hodgman leaves Manhattan for his hometown of Paris, Missouri, he finds himself - an unlikely caretaker and near-lethal cook - in a head-on collision with his aging mother, Betty, a woman of wit and will. Will George lure her into assisted living? When hell freezes over. He can't bring himself to force her from the home both treasure - the place where his father's voice lingers, the scene of shared jokes, skirmishes, and, behind the dusty antiques, a rarely acknowledged conflict...
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1 out of 5 stars
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Title Should Be Georgeville-It's All About George
- By Sara on 10-08-15
By: George Hodgman
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All You Could Ask For
- A Novel
- By: Mike Greenberg
- Narrated by: Tavia Gilbert
- Length: 9 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 79
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 71
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Story4 out of 5 stars 72
Happily married Brooke discovers her loving husband has led a separate life with…another wife. Newlywed Samantha learns of her husband's cheating heart when she finds the goods on his computer. High-powered career woman Katherine works with heartbreaker Phillip, the man who hurt her early on in her career. Brooke, Samantha, and Katherine don't know one another, but their stories are about to intertwine in ways no one could have imagined. And all three are about to discover the power of friendship to conquer adversity.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Annoyed by Hidden Theme
- By parsnip on 08-12-13
By: Mike Greenberg
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Good Riddance
- By: Elinor Lipman
- Narrated by: Mia Barron
- Length: 8 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 215
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 186
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Story3.5 out of 5 stars 187
Daphne Maritch doesn't quite know what to make of the heavily annotated high school yearbook she inherits from her mother, who held this relic dear. Too dear. The late June Winter Maritch was the teacher to whom the class of '68 had dedicated its yearbook, and in turn she went on to attend every reunion, scribbling notes and observations after each one - not always charitably - and noting who overstepped boundaries of many kinds. In a fit of decluttering (the yearbook did not, Daphne concluded, "spark joy"), she discards it when she moves to a small New York City apartment.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Not her best.
- By kendall dolphin on 02-14-19
By: Elinor Lipman
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The Road Home
- By: Ford Michael Thomas Ford
- Narrated by: Blake Somerset
- Length: 9 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 82
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 78
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Story4 out of 5 stars 78
When a car accident leaves photographer Burke Crenshaw in need of temporary full-time care, he finds himself back in the one place no forty-year-old chooses to be--his childhood bedroom. There, in the Vermont home where he grew up, Burke begins the long process of recuperation, and watches as his widowed father finds happiness in a new relationship that's a constant reminder of everything Burke wants and lacks. Exploring local history, Burke discovers an intriguing series of letters from a Civil War soldier to his fianc.
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5 out of 5 stars
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No need to check your scepticism at the door!
- By Orlando on 08-23-13
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Nearly Normal
- Surviving the Wilderness, My Family and Myself
- By: Cea Sunrise Person
- Narrated by: Cea Sunrise Person
- Length: 9 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 149
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 125
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 125
In her best-selling memoir North of Normal, Cea wrote with grace about her unconventional childhood - her early years living in a tipi in Alberta with her pot-smoking, free-loving counterculture family. But her struggles do not end when she leaves her family at the age of 13 to become a model. Honest and daring, Nearly Normal reveals the many ways that Cea's unconventional childhood continues to reverberate through the years.
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2 out of 5 stars
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This one is just not for me
- By Pamela Plimpton on 03-15-19
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Small Admissions
- A Novel
- By: Amy Poeppel
- Narrated by: Carly Robins
- Length: 9 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 225
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 206
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Story4 out of 5 stars 203
Despite her innate ambition and summa cum laude smarts, Kate Pearson has turned into a major slacker. After being dumped by her handsome French "almost fiancé", she abandons her grad school plans and spends her days lolling on the couch, leaving her apartment only when a dog-walking gig demands it. Her friends don't know what to do other than pass tissues and hope for a comeback while her practical sister, Angela, pushes every remedy she can think of, from trapeze class to therapy to job interviews.
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3 out of 5 stars
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For fans of "Where'd You Go, Bernadette ?"
- By RueRue on 01-16-17
By: Amy Poeppel
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Miss Fortune
- Fresh Perspectives on Having It All from Someone Who Is Not Okay
- By: Lauren Weedman
- Narrated by: Lauren Weedman
- Length: 8 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 44
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 41
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Story4 out of 5 stars 40
Lauren Weedman is not okay. She's living what should be the good life in sunny Los Angeles. After a gig as a correspondent with The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, she scored parts in blockbuster movies, which led to memorable recurring roles on HBO's Hung and Looking. She had a loving husband and an adorable baby boy. In these comedic essays, she turns a piercingly observant, darkly funny lens on the ways her life is actually not okay.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Good
- By Ajules29 on 04-02-16
By: Lauren Weedman
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Baltimore Blues
- Tess Monaghan, Book 1
- By: Laura Lippman
- Narrated by: Deborah Hazlett
- Length: 9 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 1,502
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 1,202
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Story4 out of 5 stars 1,194
Unemployed at 29, Tess Monaghan is willing to take any freelance job to pay the rent—including a bit of unorthodox snooping for her rowing buddy, Darryl "Rock" Paxton. In a city where someone is murdered almost every day, attorney Michael Abramowitz's death should be just another statistic. But the slain lawyer's notoriety—and his noontime trysts with Rock's fiancée—make the case front page news...and point to Rock as the likely murderer. But trying to prove her friend's innocence could prove costly to Tess.
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4 out of 5 stars
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I'm on #8 - This series is almost unique
- By connie on 02-19-12
By: Laura Lippman
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The Canterbury Sisters
- By: Kim Wright
- Narrated by: Bernadette Dunne
- Length: 9 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 63
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 60
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Story4 out of 5 stars 60
Che Milan's life is falling apart. Not only has her longtime lover abruptly dumped her, but her eccentric, demanding mother has recently died. When an urn of ashes arrives along with a note reminding Che of a half-forgotten promise to take her mother to Canterbury, Che finds herself reluctantly undertaking a pilgrimage. Within days she joins a group of women who are walking the 60 miles from London to the shrine of Becket in Canterbury Cathedral.
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4 out of 5 stars
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The Canterbury Sisters
- By Melissa on 09-22-19
By: Kim Wright
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Stories I'd Tell in Bars
- By: Jen Lancaster
- Narrated by: Jen Lancaster, John Fletcher
- Length: 8 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 365
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 325
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Story4 out of 5 stars 322
Unfiltered. Unapologetic. Older, but not wiser, Lancaster goes back to basics in this hilarious essay collection about everything from taking community policing classes to accidentally getting high with her waiter after a fancy dinner. These are the tales she'd tell if she met you in a bar... if she weren't too lazy to put on pants and go to a bar. Offering advice ranging from how to remain happily married to a man who refuses to blow his damn nose already to not creating An Incident at the cheese counter during an attempt at Whole30, she's you, only louder.
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2 out of 5 stars
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self absorbed
- By D D H on 06-15-19
By: Jen Lancaster
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After the Parade
- By: Lori Ostlund
- Narrated by: Sean Runnette
- Length: 12 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 50
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 45
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Story4 out of 5 stars 45
Sensitive, big-hearted, and achingly self-conscious, 40-year-old Aaron Englund long ago escaped the confines of his Midwestern hometown, but he still feels like an outcast. After 20 years under the Pygmalion-like direction of his older partner, Walter, Aaron at last decides it is time to stop letting life happen to him and to take control of his own fate.
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1 out of 5 stars
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Narrator
- By Barbara on 11-10-24
By: Lori Ostlund
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The Opposite of Loneliness
- Essays and Stories
- By: Marina Keegan
- Narrated by: Emily Woo Zeller
- Length: 5 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 709
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 618
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Story4 out of 5 stars 623
Marina Keegan's star was on the rise when she graduated magna cum laude from Yale in May 2012. She had a play that was to be produced at the New York International Fringe Festival and a job waiting for her at the New Yorker. Tragically, five days after graduation, Marina died in a car crash. Even though she was just 22 when she died, Marina left behind a rich, expansive trove of prose that, like her title essay, captures the hope, uncertainty, and possibility of her generation.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Probably buy the book too.
- By Soupergirl on 09-14-15
By: Marina Keegan
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I Like You Just the Way I Am
- Stories About Me and Some Other People
- By: Jenny Mollen
- Narrated by: Jenny Mollen
- Length: 7 hrs
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 835
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 745
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 737
Jenny Mollen is an actress and writer living in Los Angeles. She is also a wife, married to a famous guy (which is annoying only because he gets free shit and she doesn't). She doesn't want much from life. Just to be loved - by everybody: her parents, her dogs, her ex-boyfriends, her ex-boyfriends' dogs, her husband, her husband's ex-girlfriends, her husband's ex-girlfriend's new boyfriends, etc.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Hmm...Why am I listening to a bio of Jenny Mollen?
- By Elisabeth W. on 09-16-15
By: Jenny Mollen
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Hardly Knew Her
- By: Laura Lippman
- Narrated by: Linda Emond, Francois Battiste
- Length: 9 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 110
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 65
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Story4 out of 5 stars 66
Each of these ingenious tales is a gem, sometimes poignant, sometimes humorous, always filled with delightfully unanticipated twists and reversals. For people who have yet to listen to Lippman, get ready to experience the spellbinding power of "one of today's most pleasing storytellers" ( San Diego Union-Tribune). As for longtime devotees of her multiple award-winning novels, you'll discover that you hardly know her.
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4 out of 5 stars
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I Love Laura Lippman
- By Joy on 07-15-11
By: Laura Lippman
What listeners say about A Wonderful Stroke of Luck
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
- #Josette-stories.site
- 06-10-19
Unusual examination of character’s inner lives.
Stands out in its quiet but still dramatic examination of its character’s life journeys. Its stream of conscious thought element is something that is rather rare in today’s action filled scenario. Brilliant. Josette-stories.site.
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