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Ragtime
- Narrated by: E. L. Doctorow
- Length: 7 hrs and 47 mins
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Publisher's summary
The story opens in 1906 in New Rochelle, New York, at the home of an affluent American family. One lazy Sunday afternoon, the famous escape artist Harry Houdini swerves his car into a telephone pole outside their house. Almost magically, the line between fantasy and historical fact, between real and imaginary characters, disappears. Henry Ford, Emma Goldman, J. P. Morgan, Evelyn Nesbit, Sigmund Freud, and Emiliano Zapata slip in and out of the tale, crossing paths with Doctorow's imagined family and other fictional characters, including an immigrant peddler and a ragtime musician from Harlem whose insistence on a point of justice drives him to revolutionary violence.
A rich tapestry, Ragtime captures the spirit of America in a unique historic context.
Time magazine included the novel in its Time 100 Best English-language Novels from 1923-2005.
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Read it rather than listen
- By Anonymous on 08-31-18
By: Charles Frazier
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The Glass Palace
- By: Amitav Ghosh
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 17 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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Set in Burma during the British invasion of 1885, this masterly novel by Amitav Ghosh tells the story of Rajkumar, a poor boy lifted on the tides of political and social chaos, who goes on to create an empire in the Burmese teak forest. When soldiers force the royal family out of the Glass Palace and into exile, Rajkumar befriends Dolly, a young woman in the court of the Burmese Queen, whose love will shape his life. He cannot forget her, and years later, as a rich man, he goes in search of her.
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I struggled to finish... enough said.
- By Ty on 05-02-10
By: Amitav Ghosh
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Netherland
- By: Joseph O'Neill
- Narrated by: Jefferson Mays
- Length: 8 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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Alone and un-tethered, feeling lost in the country he had come to regard as home, Hans stumbles upon the vibrant New York subculture of cricket, where he revisits his lost childhood and, thanks to a friendship with a charismatic and charming Trinidadian named Chuck Ramkissoon, begins to reconnect with his life and his adopted country. Ramkissoon, a Gatsby-like figure who is part idealist and part operator, introduces Hans to an "other" New York populated by immigrants and strivers of every race and nationality.
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Get Your Post-Colonial Gatsby ON!
- By Darwin8u on 04-13-12
By: Joseph O'Neill
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Bend Sinister
- By: Vladimir Nabokov
- Narrated by: Robert Blumenfeld
- Length: 7 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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The first novel Nabokov wrote while living in America, and the most overtly political novel he ever wrote, Bend Sinister is a modern classic. While it is filled with veiled puns and characteristically delightful wordplay, it is, first and foremost, a haunting and compelling narrative about a civilized man caught in the tyranny of a police state. Professor Adam Krug, the country's foremost philosopher, offers the only hope of resistance to Paduk, dictator and leader of the Party of the Average Man.
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A fantastic fairytale of fascism
- By Darwin8u on 12-12-13
By: Vladimir Nabokov
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We the Living
- By: Ayn Rand
- Narrated by: Mary Woods
- Length: 18 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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We the Living portrays the impact of the Russian Revolution on three people who demand the right to live their own lives. At its center is a girl whose passionate love is her fortress against the cruelty and oppression of a totalitarian state. Rand said of this book: "It is as near to an autobiography as I will ever write."
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Emotionally intense, historically authentic
- By Geoffrey on 08-14-08
By: Ayn Rand
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Single & Single
- By: John le Carré
- Narrated by: Michael Jayston
- Length: 12 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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A lawyer from the London finance house of Single & Single is shot dead on a Turkish hillside by people with whom he thought he was in business. A children's magician is asked by his bank to explain the unsolicited arrival of more than five million pounds sterling in his young daughter's modest trust. A freighter bound for Liverpool is boarded by Russian coast guards in the Black Sea. The celebrated London merchant venturer "Tiger" Single disappears into thin air.
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The spy who came back to the bank
- By Darwin8u on 03-12-14
By: John le Carré
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The Mercury Visions of Louis Daguerre
- By: Dominic Smith
- Narrated by: Stephen Hoye
- Length: 10 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
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In this luminous novel, Dominic Smith reinvents the life of one of photography's founding fathers. In 1839, Louis Daguerre's invention took the world by storm. A decade later, he is sinking deep into delusions brought on by exposure to mercury, the very agent that allowed his daguerreotype process. Believing the world will end within one year, he creates his "Doomsday List", 10 items he must photograph before the final day. It includes a woman he has always loved but has not seen in half a century.
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Dud
- By Deborah on 01-31-08
By: Dominic Smith
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One of Ours
- By: Willa Cather
- Narrated by: Kristen Underwood
- Length: 13 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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Claude Wheeler resembles the youngest son of an American fairy tale. His fortune is ready-made for him, but he refuses to settle for it. Alienated from his crass father and pious mother, all but rejected by a wife who reserves her ardor for missionary work, and dissatisfied with farming, Claude is an idealist without an ideal to cling to. It is only when his country enters the First World War that Claude finds what he has been searching for all his life.
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Cather's writing is impeccable
- By Kelly on 12-20-19
By: Willa Cather
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Stories
- All-New Tales
- By: Neil Gaiman - author/editor, Al Sarrantonio - editor, Joe Hill, and others
- Narrated by: Anne Bobby, Jonathan Davis, Katherine Kellgren, and others
- Length: 18 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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The best stories pull readers in and keep them turning the pages, eager to discover more—to find the answer to the question: "And then what happened?" The true hallmark of great literature is great imagination, and as Neil Gaiman and Al Sarrantonio prove with this outstanding collection, when it comes to great fiction, all genres are equal.
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Something for Everyone
- By Nicole on 05-24-17
By: Neil Gaiman - author/editor, and others
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Doctor Zhivago
- By: Boris Pasternak, Larissa Volokhonsky - translator, Richard Pevear - translator
- Narrated by: John Lee
- Length: 23 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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In celebration of the 40th anniversary of its original publication, here is a new translation of the classic story of the life and loves of a poet/physician during the turmoil of the Russian Revolution. Taking his family from Moscow to what he hopes will be shelter in the Ural Mountains, Zhivago finds himself instead embroiled in the battle between the Whites and the Reds. Set against this backdrop of cruelty and strife is Zhivago’s love for the tender and beautiful Lara.
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Russian Philosophical Feast
- By Syd Young on 02-16-13
By: Boris Pasternak, and others
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In December 1930, just before Christmas, the Gibbsville, Pennsylvania, social circuit is electrified with parties and dances. At the center of the social elite stand Julian and Caroline English. But in one rash moment born inside a highball glass, Julian breaks with polite society and begins a rapid descent toward self-destruction.
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Quite good, but not a classic
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THAT part of the Universe visible from Chicago!
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Falconer
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A convict named Farragut struggles to remain a man while inside a nightmarish prison. Cheever crafted his most powerful work of fiction out of Farragut's suffering and astonishing salvation.
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Unsettling and beautiful
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The lyrical quality of money is strange
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Admired by F. Scott Fitzgerald, Dorothy Parker, and Dashiell Hammett, and hailed as one of the best 100 English-language novels by Time magazine, The Day of the Locust continues to influence American writers, artists, and culture. Bob Dylan wrote the classic song "Day of the Locusts" in homage, and Matt Groening's Homer Simpson is named after one of its characters. No novel more perfectly captures the nuttier side of Hollywood. Here the lens is turned on its fringes-actors out of work, film extras with big dreams, and parents lining their children up for small roles.
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great writing, bleak story
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The Blind Assassin
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For the past twenty-five years, Margaret Atwood has written works of striking originality and imagination. In The Blind Assassin, she stretches the limits of her accomplishments as never before, creating a novel that is entertaining and profoundly serious. The novel opens with these simple, resonant words: "Ten days after the war ended, my sister drove a car off the bridge." They are spoken by Iris, whose terse account of her sister Laura's death in 1945 is followed by an inquest report proclaiming the death accidental.
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Good book, TERRIBLE audio!
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Welcome to Hard Times
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Hard Times is the name of a town in the barren hills of the Dakota Territory. To this town there comes one day one of the reckless sociopaths who wander the West to kill and rape and pillage. By the time he is through and has ridden off, Hard Times is a smoking ruin. The de facto mayor, Blue, takes in two survivors of the carnage - a boy, Jimmy, and a prostitute, Molly, who has suffered unspeakably - and makes them his provisional family.
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A lesson in moral and civic responsiblity
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The Naked and the Dead
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John Buffalo Mailer narrates his father's book
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The Ghost Writer
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The Ghost Writer introduces Nathan Zuckerman in the 1950s, a budding writer infatuated with the great books, discovering the contradictory claims of literature and experience while an overnight guest in the secluded New England farmhouse of his idol, E. I. Lonoff. At Lonoff's, Zuckerman meets Amy Bellette, a haunting young woman of indeterminate foreign background who turns out to be a former student of Lonoff's and who may also have been his mistress.
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Turning Sentences Around
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I, Claudius
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Here is one of the best historical novels ever written. Lame, stammering Claudius, once a major embarrassment to the imperial family and now emperor of Rome, writes an eyewitness account of the reign of the first four Caesars: the noble Augustus and his cunning wife, Livia; the reptilian Tiberius; the monstrous Caligula; and finally old Claudius himself. Filled with poisonings, betrayal, and shocking excesses, I Claudius is history that rivals the most exciting contemporary fiction.
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Unsurpassed, addictive brilliance
- By Chris on 06-09-09
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Cathedral
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- Unabridged
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A sweeping story about obsession, mysticism, art and earthly desire. At the centre of this story is the Cathedral. Its design and construction in the 13th and 14th centuries in the fictional town of Hagenburg unites a vast array of unforgettable characters whose fortunes are inseparable from the shifting political factions and economic interests vying for supremacy. From the bishop to his treasurer, from local merchants to lowly stonecutters, the fate of everyone, both Gentile and Jew, is affected by the slow rise of Hagenburg’s cathedral.
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Interesting description of life in the Middle Ages
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By: Ben Hopkins
What listeners say about Ragtime
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Meredith White
- 06-07-17
Beyond fabulous!
The best selling book of my birth year. A random find that I will treasure always.
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- Shawn Holman
- 06-14-18
Great epic story
This is an amazing novel with historical figures woven seamlessly and believably in with fictional characters. In the beginning it felt like a stream of consciousness breakdown of the historical figures but once the story of the fictional characters started to develop and grow it really becomes quite amazing. E.L. Doctorow does have kind of a creepy old man vibe around descriptions of sex, and of women, especially young girls. So there's that. That's actually why I didn't give it 5 stars. Why do talented men write women so gross? (rhetorical question)
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- Jamanosa
- 12-28-21
Worst narration ever
Truly the worst. So bad that thateveryone should read this book not listen to it on audible. EL Doctorow was obviously a gifted writer but such an abysmal reader that his performance actually took much away from the story— which, once it “popped” was impossible not to listen to even with the tremendous shortcomings of the reader may he Rest In Peace.
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- TiffanyD
- 12-31-20
From Harry Houdini to Emma Goldman
Featuring a kaleidoscope of characters from early 20th century America--from Eleanor Nesbit to Emma Goldman to Harry Houdini--but main characters who are always at a remove and indeed, never even given names. . The narrator is solid but I never felt emotionally invested in anyone until we meet Coalhouse Walker, which is pretty late in the game.
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- Anonymous User
- 09-20-23
Not like the play.
Interesting book, but not much help or similar to the production we saw. I was glad to be able to compare.
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- Michelle Daniels
- 12-26-23
Real history in the fiction
I was surprised by how much I enjoyed this story. There was enough historical detail to send me into research mode and down several rabbit hole learning details I never knew about well-known figures and events. I’m impressed that a tale pinned to a specific era could be so timeless.
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- Darwin8u
- 01-03-14
Syncopated, tight, urgent historical novel
So my first book of 2014 isn't even on my to-read list. Must be good. Yes, in fact it is the killer historical novel of the Ragtime era. It is the big uncle to late 90s Philip Roth ('I Married a Communist', 'American Pastoral') , Don DeLillo ('Libra', 'Underworld'), Gore Vidal ('Empire, Hollywood') & Norman Mailer* (Executioner's Song & Harlot's Ghost) novels which seem to all bend a little to the wind that blew out of this syncopated, tight, urgent historical novel. Doctorow captures a swift and direct channel of New York's energy, contradiction, growth, insecurity, isolation as America transformed between the late 1800s and early 1900s. It captured the race, immigrant, monied, and cultural changes that griped New York as cars were beginning to roll down the streets and planes and Houdini were both beginning to float, briefly, in the air.
* Doctorow actually edited Norman Mailer's 'An American Dream' so it might seem odd to call Doctorow a literary uncle to Mailer since 'Ragitme' was originally published in 1974, but as most large families invariably find some nephews ARE actually older than their biological uncles. But I still hold that 'Ragtime' was influential on Mailer's later historical novels and even nonfiction. OK, so, perhaps Mailer and Doctorow are more like kissing cousins. Fine. I'll call them cousins.
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32 people found this helpful
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Overall
- Dorothy
- 01-21-15
Disillusionment
No matter how far you've come it's never far enough. Coldham was cultured and educated and a musician . I thought Houdini was married.
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Story
- Michael J Gore
- 08-31-19
Beautifully rendered
Beautifully written book intertwining historical and fictional characters. The language is lyrical and the story moving and profound.
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
- Clarice Cooke
- 12-17-18
Powerful Story
A moving tale about the lives of people in a fast and quickly evolving world.
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