-
Real Life and Other Fictions
- A Novel
- Narrated by: Jane Oppenheimer
- Length: 10 hrs and 7 mins
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Buy for $25.19
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
Publisher's summary
***"If you're fascinated by unexplained phenomena, hop in a beat-up Audi with the kooky and supersmart Cassie Klein and her dog Luna for a voyage of discovery involving a giant moth, a West Virginia bridge collapse and a hot cryptozoologist. The droll Ms. Coll strikes again!"--People Magazine***
Cassie Klein has always used stories to help her fly, but now her plot points aren't lining up.
In her 50s, Cassie has already weathered more than most. She was orphaned at the age of two and has never fully understood why her DC-based parents were on a bridge in West Virginia that just so happened to collapse as they drove across it. Her search for answers prompted a failed career in journalism, and now she's an aspiring novelist teaching at a local community college waiting for her literary dreams to finally come true. She stood by her once-doting husband when his meteorology career took a nosedive, and now she has learned that the man who became an internet meme has been cheating on her.
She's had enough. She scoops up a teething puppy and embarks on a road trip that's heavy on impulse and light on planning. She's not sure where she's going, but she knows she might as well start at the beginning. What really happened to her parents all those years ago?
In this comically surreal, warmhearted journey, she encounters people she never knew existed--chief among them, an enigmatic cryptozoologist, who helps her in the quest to discover her past. And along the way, she looks for answers regarding curious sightings of a creature known as the Mothman in the months before her parents died. As the line between real life and fiction blurs, Cassie finds herself grappling with the nature of stories, myths, and who gets to write the endings.
Related to this topic
-
Stranded
- By: Chris Bruno, David Howard Lee, Shukri R. Abdi
- Narrated by: Taraji P. Henson, Tracee Ellis Ross, Blake Griffin, and others
- Length: 2 hrs and 7 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Separated by 10 years, 3,000 miles, and the unrelenting stresses of adulthood, best friends Janet and Serena plan a 40th birthday girls’ trip to reconnect. But after a massive crash, they’re the only survivors to wash ashore on an uncharted Caribbean Island. Armed with only the clothes on their backs and zero survival skills, they fight to overcome hunger, thirst, deadly wildlife—and most terrifyingly—decades of accrued resentment. Can they find their way home, or will they kill each other first?
-
-
Get ready to Laugh
- By Lasheree McFarlane on 11-08-24
By: Chris Bruno, and others
-
Born a Crime
- Stories from a South African Childhood
- By: Trevor Noah
- Narrated by: Trevor Noah
- Length: 8 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this award-winning Audible Studios production, Trevor Noah tells his wild coming-of-age tale during the twilight of apartheid in South Africa. It’s a story that begins with his mother throwing him from a moving van to save him from a potentially fatal dispute with gangsters, then follows the budding comedian’s path to self-discovery through episodes both poignant and comical.
-
-
Great book and perfect narration
- By MarilynArms on 12-15-16
By: Trevor Noah
-
The Best Man's Ghostwriter
- By: Matthew Starr
- Narrated by: Glen Powell, Nicholas Braun, Ashley Park, and others
- Length: 4 hrs and 37 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A bad best man’s speech can ruin a wedding. Why do we plan every detail of a perfect day and then give the groom’s idiot best friend five minutes of total power? Enter Nate (Glen Powell), a speechwriter-for-hire who helps people write incredible best man speeches. To keep the best man from embarrassing himself (and the newlyweds), Nate uses his list of don’ts: Don’t mention the exes, don’t be rated R, and don’t bum everyone out. Nate’s system never fails. That is, until he meets Dan (Nicholas Braun).
-
-
SO GOOD
- By Csutty on 09-23-24
By: Matthew Starr
-
Slaughterhouse-Five
- By: Kurt Vonnegut
- Narrated by: James Franco
- Length: 5 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Traumatized by the bombing of Dresden at the time he had been imprisoned, Pilgrim drifts through all events and history, sometimes deeply implicated, sometimes a witness. He is surrounded by Vonnegut's usual large cast of continuing characters (notably here the hack science fiction writer Kilgore Trout and the alien Tralfamadorians, who oversee his life and remind him constantly that there is no causation, no order, no motive to existence).
-
-
Don't Quit Your Daytime Job, James
- By Keith on 11-20-15
By: Kurt Vonnegut
-
The Great Indoors
- By: Ginny Hogan
- Narrated by: Mae Whitman
- Length: 3 hrs and 53 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Alice's journey begins as all good journeys do: hitting on the sales guy at REI. After a tumultuous breakup, a quick career transition, family upheaval, and a sobriety journey that didn't fix her life quite as much as she expected it to, Alice decides that the only way to solve all her problems is to hike the Pacific Crest Trail. But as she begins preparing for the months-long quest, she realizes the answers she's seeking might not be on top of a snow-covered mountain. Especially since she just learned there was snow in California.
-
-
Chuck full of laughs to lift anyone's spirits.
- By Laura Boogaert on 09-22-24
By: Ginny Hogan
-
I Can't Make This Up
- Life Lessons
- By: Neil Strauss - contributor, Kevin Hart
- Narrated by: Kevin Hart
- Length: 11 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Superstar comedian and Hollywood box-office star Kevin Hart turns his immense talent to the written word by writing some words. Some of those words include: the, a, for, above, and even even. Put them together and you have the funniest, most heartfelt, and most inspirational memoir on survival, success, and the importance of believing in yourself since Old Yeller.
-
-
Best Audiobook I Ever Listened To
- By Sam Clear on 07-13-17
By: Neil Strauss - contributor, and others
-
Stranded
- By: Chris Bruno, David Howard Lee, Shukri R. Abdi
- Narrated by: Taraji P. Henson, Tracee Ellis Ross, Blake Griffin, and others
- Length: 2 hrs and 7 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Separated by 10 years, 3,000 miles, and the unrelenting stresses of adulthood, best friends Janet and Serena plan a 40th birthday girls’ trip to reconnect. But after a massive crash, they’re the only survivors to wash ashore on an uncharted Caribbean Island. Armed with only the clothes on their backs and zero survival skills, they fight to overcome hunger, thirst, deadly wildlife—and most terrifyingly—decades of accrued resentment. Can they find their way home, or will they kill each other first?
-
-
Get ready to Laugh
- By Lasheree McFarlane on 11-08-24
By: Chris Bruno, and others
-
Born a Crime
- Stories from a South African Childhood
- By: Trevor Noah
- Narrated by: Trevor Noah
- Length: 8 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this award-winning Audible Studios production, Trevor Noah tells his wild coming-of-age tale during the twilight of apartheid in South Africa. It’s a story that begins with his mother throwing him from a moving van to save him from a potentially fatal dispute with gangsters, then follows the budding comedian’s path to self-discovery through episodes both poignant and comical.
-
-
Great book and perfect narration
- By MarilynArms on 12-15-16
By: Trevor Noah
-
The Best Man's Ghostwriter
- By: Matthew Starr
- Narrated by: Glen Powell, Nicholas Braun, Ashley Park, and others
- Length: 4 hrs and 37 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A bad best man’s speech can ruin a wedding. Why do we plan every detail of a perfect day and then give the groom’s idiot best friend five minutes of total power? Enter Nate (Glen Powell), a speechwriter-for-hire who helps people write incredible best man speeches. To keep the best man from embarrassing himself (and the newlyweds), Nate uses his list of don’ts: Don’t mention the exes, don’t be rated R, and don’t bum everyone out. Nate’s system never fails. That is, until he meets Dan (Nicholas Braun).
-
-
SO GOOD
- By Csutty on 09-23-24
By: Matthew Starr
-
Slaughterhouse-Five
- By: Kurt Vonnegut
- Narrated by: James Franco
- Length: 5 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Traumatized by the bombing of Dresden at the time he had been imprisoned, Pilgrim drifts through all events and history, sometimes deeply implicated, sometimes a witness. He is surrounded by Vonnegut's usual large cast of continuing characters (notably here the hack science fiction writer Kilgore Trout and the alien Tralfamadorians, who oversee his life and remind him constantly that there is no causation, no order, no motive to existence).
-
-
Don't Quit Your Daytime Job, James
- By Keith on 11-20-15
By: Kurt Vonnegut
-
The Great Indoors
- By: Ginny Hogan
- Narrated by: Mae Whitman
- Length: 3 hrs and 53 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Alice's journey begins as all good journeys do: hitting on the sales guy at REI. After a tumultuous breakup, a quick career transition, family upheaval, and a sobriety journey that didn't fix her life quite as much as she expected it to, Alice decides that the only way to solve all her problems is to hike the Pacific Crest Trail. But as she begins preparing for the months-long quest, she realizes the answers she's seeking might not be on top of a snow-covered mountain. Especially since she just learned there was snow in California.
-
-
Chuck full of laughs to lift anyone's spirits.
- By Laura Boogaert on 09-22-24
By: Ginny Hogan
-
I Can't Make This Up
- Life Lessons
- By: Neil Strauss - contributor, Kevin Hart
- Narrated by: Kevin Hart
- Length: 11 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Superstar comedian and Hollywood box-office star Kevin Hart turns his immense talent to the written word by writing some words. Some of those words include: the, a, for, above, and even even. Put them together and you have the funniest, most heartfelt, and most inspirational memoir on survival, success, and the importance of believing in yourself since Old Yeller.
-
-
Best Audiobook I Ever Listened To
- By Sam Clear on 07-13-17
By: Neil Strauss - contributor, and others
People who viewed this also viewed...
-
Bookish People
- By: Susan Coll
- Narrated by: Alexa Morden
- Length: 8 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Independent bookstore owner Sophie Bernstein is burned out on books. Mourning the death of her husband, the loss of her favorite manager, her only child’s lack of aspiration, and the grim state of the world, she fantasizes about going into hiding in the secret back room of her store. Meanwhile, renowned poet Raymond Chaucer has published a new collection, and rumors that he’s to blame for his wife’s suicide have led to cancellations of his publicity tour. He intends to set the record straight—with a fine-point Sharpie—but only one shop still plans to host him: Sophie’s.
-
-
meh
- By Reluctant Consumer on 09-24-22
By: Susan Coll
-
I Hope This Finds You Well
- A Novel
- By: Natalie Sue
- Narrated by: Nasim Pedrad
- Length: 12 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
As far as Jolene is concerned, her interactions with her colleagues should start and end with her official duties as an admin for Supershops, Inc. Unfortunately, her irritating, incompetent coworkers don’t seem to understand the importance of boundaries. Her secret to survival? She vents her grievances in petty email postscripts, then changes the text color to white so no one can see. That is until one of her secret messages is exposed. Her punishment: sensitivity training (led by the suspiciously friendly HR guy, Cliff) and rigorous email restrictions.
-
-
So good!
- By Amy on 06-03-24
By: Natalie Sue
-
The Fabled Earth
- By: Kimberly Brock
- Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell
- Length: 12 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Southern mythology and personal reckoning collide in this sweeping story inspired by the little-known history of Cumberland Island when a once-in-a-century storm threatens the natural landscape. Faced with a changing world, two timelines and the perspectives of three women intersect where a folktale meets the truth to reveal what Cumberland Island has hidden all along.
-
-
All stories are ghost stories
- By Bubba Wilson on 10-26-24
By: Kimberly Brock
-
All This and More
- A Novel
- By: Peng Shepherd
- Narrated by: Helen Laser
- Length: 15 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Meek, play-it-safe Marsh has just turned forty-five, and her life is in shambles. Her career is stagnant, her marriage has imploded, and her teenage daughter grows more distant by the day. Marsh is convinced she’s missed her chance at everything—romance, professional fulfillment, and adventure—and is desperate for a do-over. She can’t believe her luck when she’s selected to be the star of the global sensation All This and More, a show that uses quantum technology to allow contestants the chance to revise their pasts and change their present lives.
-
-
Not good at all
- By Joy on 08-18-24
By: Peng Shepherd
-
You Are Here
- A Novel
- By: David Nicholls
- Narrated by: Lee Ingleby, Lydia Leonard
- Length: 8 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Michael is coming undone. Adrift after his wife's departure, he has begun taking himself on long, solitary walks across the English countryside. Becoming ever more reclusive, he’ll do anything to avoid his empty house. Marnie, on the other hand, is stuck. Hiding alone in her London flat, she avoids old friends and any reminders of her rotten, selfish ex-husband. Curled up with a good book, she’s battling the long afternoons of a life that feels like it’s passing her by.
-
-
I loved it.
- By kgohl on 08-22-24
By: David Nicholls
-
Love Is a Burning Thing
- A Memoir
- By: Nina St. Pierre
- Narrated by: Nina St. Pierre
- Length: 8 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In Love Is a Burning Thing, Nina interrogates what happens to those undiagnosed and unseen. This is a transfixing, moving portrait of a mother-daughter relationship that also examines mental health, stigma, poverty, and gender—and the role that spirituality plays within each. Nina’s writing skirts the mystical, untangles it, and ultimately illuminates it with brilliance.
-
-
In depth expansive memour
- By Lynda Sheridan on 06-10-24
By: Nina St. Pierre
-
Bookish People
- By: Susan Coll
- Narrated by: Alexa Morden
- Length: 8 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Independent bookstore owner Sophie Bernstein is burned out on books. Mourning the death of her husband, the loss of her favorite manager, her only child’s lack of aspiration, and the grim state of the world, she fantasizes about going into hiding in the secret back room of her store. Meanwhile, renowned poet Raymond Chaucer has published a new collection, and rumors that he’s to blame for his wife’s suicide have led to cancellations of his publicity tour. He intends to set the record straight—with a fine-point Sharpie—but only one shop still plans to host him: Sophie’s.
-
-
meh
- By Reluctant Consumer on 09-24-22
By: Susan Coll
-
I Hope This Finds You Well
- A Novel
- By: Natalie Sue
- Narrated by: Nasim Pedrad
- Length: 12 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
As far as Jolene is concerned, her interactions with her colleagues should start and end with her official duties as an admin for Supershops, Inc. Unfortunately, her irritating, incompetent coworkers don’t seem to understand the importance of boundaries. Her secret to survival? She vents her grievances in petty email postscripts, then changes the text color to white so no one can see. That is until one of her secret messages is exposed. Her punishment: sensitivity training (led by the suspiciously friendly HR guy, Cliff) and rigorous email restrictions.
-
-
So good!
- By Amy on 06-03-24
By: Natalie Sue
-
The Fabled Earth
- By: Kimberly Brock
- Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell
- Length: 12 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Southern mythology and personal reckoning collide in this sweeping story inspired by the little-known history of Cumberland Island when a once-in-a-century storm threatens the natural landscape. Faced with a changing world, two timelines and the perspectives of three women intersect where a folktale meets the truth to reveal what Cumberland Island has hidden all along.
-
-
All stories are ghost stories
- By Bubba Wilson on 10-26-24
By: Kimberly Brock
-
All This and More
- A Novel
- By: Peng Shepherd
- Narrated by: Helen Laser
- Length: 15 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Meek, play-it-safe Marsh has just turned forty-five, and her life is in shambles. Her career is stagnant, her marriage has imploded, and her teenage daughter grows more distant by the day. Marsh is convinced she’s missed her chance at everything—romance, professional fulfillment, and adventure—and is desperate for a do-over. She can’t believe her luck when she’s selected to be the star of the global sensation All This and More, a show that uses quantum technology to allow contestants the chance to revise their pasts and change their present lives.
-
-
Not good at all
- By Joy on 08-18-24
By: Peng Shepherd
-
You Are Here
- A Novel
- By: David Nicholls
- Narrated by: Lee Ingleby, Lydia Leonard
- Length: 8 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Michael is coming undone. Adrift after his wife's departure, he has begun taking himself on long, solitary walks across the English countryside. Becoming ever more reclusive, he’ll do anything to avoid his empty house. Marnie, on the other hand, is stuck. Hiding alone in her London flat, she avoids old friends and any reminders of her rotten, selfish ex-husband. Curled up with a good book, she’s battling the long afternoons of a life that feels like it’s passing her by.
-
-
I loved it.
- By kgohl on 08-22-24
By: David Nicholls
-
Love Is a Burning Thing
- A Memoir
- By: Nina St. Pierre
- Narrated by: Nina St. Pierre
- Length: 8 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In Love Is a Burning Thing, Nina interrogates what happens to those undiagnosed and unseen. This is a transfixing, moving portrait of a mother-daughter relationship that also examines mental health, stigma, poverty, and gender—and the role that spirituality plays within each. Nina’s writing skirts the mystical, untangles it, and ultimately illuminates it with brilliance.
-
-
In depth expansive memour
- By Lynda Sheridan on 06-10-24
By: Nina St. Pierre
-
Ladykiller
- A Novel
- By: Katherine Wood
- Narrated by: Marcella Black, Hallie Ricardo
- Length: 11 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Gia and Abby have been friends since childhood, forever bonded by the tragedy that unfolded in Greece when they were eighteen. Now thirty, heiress Gia is back in Greece with her shiny new husband, entertaining glamorous guests with champagne under the hot Mediterranean sun, while bookish Abby is working fourteen-hour-days as an attorney. When Gia invites Abby on an all-expenses-paid trip to Sweden to celebrate her birthday, Abby’s thrilled to reconnect.
-
-
Middle of the road for me
- By Megan M. on 08-28-24
By: Katherine Wood
-
Like Mother, Like Daughter
- A Novel
- By: Kimberly McCreight
- Narrated by: Olivia Campbell, Cassandra Campbell
- Length: 10 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When Cleo, a student at NYU, arrives late for dinner at her childhood home in Brooklyn, she finds food burning in the oven and no sign of her mother, Kat. Then Cleo discovers her mom’s bloody shoe under the sofa. Something terrible has happened. But what? The polar opposite of Cleo, whose “out of control” emotions and “unsafe” behavior have created a seemingly unbridgeable rift between mother and daughter, Kat is the essence of Park Slope perfection: a happily married, successful corporate lawyer. Or so Cleo thinks.
-
-
Uneven narration - skip this one
- By motoJill on 09-10-24
-
Sex and Vanity
- A Novel
- By: Kevin Kwan
- Narrated by: Lydia Look
- Length: 9 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The iconic author of the best-selling phenomenon Crazy Rich Asians returns with the glittering tale of a young woman who finds herself torn between two men: the WASPY fiancé of her family's dreams and George Zao, the man she is desperately trying to avoid falling in love with.
-
-
Gorgeous
- By Jess on 07-05-20
By: Kevin Kwan
-
Long Island Compromise
- A Novel
- By: Taffy Brodesser-Akner
- Narrated by: Edoardo Ballerini, Taffy Brodesser-Akner
- Length: 15 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1980, a wealthy businessman named Carl Fletcher is kidnapped from his driveway, brutalized, and held for ransom. He is returned to his wife and kids less than a week later, only slightly the worse, and the family moves on with their lives, resuming their prized places in the saga of the American dream, comforted in the realization that though their money may have been what endangered them, it is also what assured them their safety. But now, nearly forty years later, it’s clear that perhaps nobody ever got over anything, after all.
-
-
We need more from Taffy Brodesser-Akner!
- By Ximena Enriquez on 08-31-24
-
Same as It Ever Was
- A Novel
- By: Claire Lombardo
- Narrated by: Emily Rankin
- Length: 18 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Julia Ames, after a youth marked by upheaval and emotional turbulence, has found herself on the placid plateau of mid-life. But Julia has never navigated the world with the equanimity of her current privileged class. Having nearly derailed herself several times, making desperate bids for the kind of connection that always felt inaccessible to her, she finally feels, at age fifty seven, that she has a firm handle on things. She’s unprepared, though, for what comes next.
-
-
Long winded
- By Brooke on 09-17-24
By: Claire Lombardo
-
The Wedding People
- A Novel
- By: Alison Espach
- Narrated by: Helen Laser
- Length: 11 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It’s a beautiful day in Newport, Rhode Island, when Phoebe Stone arrives at the grand Cornwall Inn wearing a green dress and gold heels, not a bag in sight, alone. She's immediately mistaken by everyone in the lobby for one of the wedding people, but she’s actually the only guest at the Cornwall who isn’t here for the big event. Phoebe is here because she’s dreamed of coming for years—she hoped to shuck oysters and take sunset sails with her husband, only now she’s here without him, at rock bottom, and determined to have one last decadent splurge on herself.
-
-
What a beautiful book
- By Brooke Baker on 08-15-24
By: Alison Espach
What listeners say about Real Life and Other Fictions
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Karenadd
- 09-12-24
Interesting
I really enjoyed this book. It was quietly interesting at first and built from there. The characters were likable and believable. The narrator was very good.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!