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The Disappearing Andersons of Loon Lake
- Narrated by: Jess Wells
- Length: 2 hrs
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The Disappearing Andersons of Loon Lake
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Publisher's summary
Love, loss, irony, and humor abound in the lives of eight families living around Loon Lake, a shallow fishing spot in Northern Michigan. Wells' "use of language is like music," critics says, while others call her writing "a rich and varied drug," and that these stories convey "a real sense of the contradiction and the ambivalence that goes on within the family circle...through writing that has a lyrical style." Whether it's the story of a young dreamer and a bully, a man looking forward to retirement and the family that stands in his way, a teacher facing ethical choices, or a family coping with disaster, these stories delight.
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 239
In the summer of 1928, sixteen-year-old Minka was looking forward to a sewing class picnic. This would be a rare chance to put aside farm chores, don a pretty dress, and enjoy an outing with other girls. It would be a day to remember. And it was - but not in the way Minka had dreamed. Cornered by a stranger in the woods, the young girl was assaulted. Minka still believed that the stork brought babies; she would not discover for months that she was pregnant.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Captivating and fantastic
- By John alexander on 10-03-19
By: Cathy LaGrow, and others
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All the Winters After
- A Novel
- By: Seré Prince Halverson
- Narrated by: George Newbern
- Length: 10 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 1,469
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 1,359
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Story4 out of 5 stars 1,359
Kachemak Winkel never intended to come back to his hometown of Caboose, Alaska, where his family died in a plane crash 20 years earlier. When he finally musters the courage to return and face his painful memories, he's surprised to find a mysterious young woman living in his abandoned house.
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4 out of 5 stars
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The Old Old Story
- By Bruce on 06-16-16
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Without a Map
- A Memoir
- By: Meredith Hall
- Narrated by: Kathe Mazur
- Length: 9 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 59
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 55
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Story4 out of 5 stars 53
Meredith Hall's moving but unsentimental memoir begins in 1965, when she becomes pregnant at sixteen. Shunned by her insular New Hampshire community, she is then kicked out of the house by her mother. Her father and stepmother reluctantly take her in, hiding her before they finally banish her altogether. After giving her baby up for adoption, Hall wanders recklessly through the Middle East, where she survives by selling her possessions and finally her blood.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Not Your Average "16 and Pregnant"
- By Susie on 12-11-12
By: Meredith Hall
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They Left Us Everything
- A Memoir
- By: Plum Johnson
- Narrated by: Pilar Witherspoon
- Length: 8 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 61
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 52
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 52
After almost 20 years of caring for elderly parents - first for their senile father and then for their cantankerous 93-year-old mother - author Plum Johnson and her three younger brothers have finally fallen to their middle-aged knees with conflicted feelings of grief and relief. Now they must empty and sell the beloved family home, 23 rooms bulging with history, antiques, and oxygen tanks. Plum thought, How tough will that be? I know how to buy garbage bags. But the task turns out to be much harder and more rewarding than she ever imagined.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Thought provoking
- By Margaret on 05-02-17
By: Plum Johnson
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In the Country
- Stories
- By: Mia Alvar
- Narrated by: Nancy Wu, Don Castro
- Length: 13 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 58
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 53
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Story4 out of 5 stars 55
These nine globe-trotting, unforgettable stories from Mia Alvar, a remarkable new literary talent, vividly give voice to the women and men of the Filipino diaspora. Here are exiles, emigrants, and wanderers uprooting their families from the Philippines to begin new lives in the Middle East, the United States, and elsewhere - and sometimes turning back again.
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5 out of 5 stars
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My introduction to Filipino literature and culture
- By Amazon Customer on 03-28-16
By: Mia Alvar
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The Great Failure
- A Bartender, a Monk, and My Unlikely Path to Truth
- By: Natalie Goldberg
- Narrated by: Natalie Goldberg
- Length: 6 hrs and 46 mins
- Original Recording
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 31
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 24
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Story5 out of 5 stars 23
"The Great Failure is a boundless embrace, leaving nothing out. I wanted to learn the truth, to become whole. If I could touch the dark nature in someone else, I could know it in myself." So begins Natalie Goldberg in this candid exploration of her life. Here, Goldberg makes sense of primary relationships between father and daughter, teacher and student, and exemplifies the accomplishment available when creating daily writing practices.
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5 out of 5 stars
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If you have been let down by anyone. Listen
- By Mia on 04-19-18
By: Natalie Goldberg
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The UnAmericans
- Stories
- By: Molly Antopol
- Narrated by: Jennifer Van Dyck
- Length: 7 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 124
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 111
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Story4 out of 5 stars 111
Again and again, Molly Antopol’s deeply sympathetic characters struggle for footing in an uncertain world, hounded by forces beyond their control. Their voices are intimate and powerful and they resonate with searing beauty. Antopol is a superb young talent, and The UnAmericans will long be remembered for its wit, humanity, and heart.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Sensational stories! Brilliant new author.
- By MidwestGeek on 05-04-14
By: Molly Antopol
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One Amazing Thing
- By: Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
- Narrated by: Purva Bedi, Soneela Nankani, Neil Shah
- Length: 7 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 128
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 102
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Story4 out of 5 stars 100
Winner of a Pushcart Prize for poetry and an American Book Award for her short stories, Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni explores themes of women, immigration, and her vibrant Indian culture to great effect. Divakaruni expands on these ideas in One Amazing Thing, a project long in the making and full of electric prose.
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3 out of 5 stars
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An ok way to kill some time
- By R.Reader on 11-07-12
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The Portable Veblen
- By: Elizabeth Mckenzie
- Narrated by: Julia Gibson
- Length: 12 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 196
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 175
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Story3.5 out of 5 stars 176
An exuberant, one-of-a-kind novel about love and family, war and nature, new money and old values by a brilliant New Yorker contributor. The Portable Veblen is a dazzlingly original novel that's as big-hearted as it is laugh-out-loud funny. Set in and around Palo Alto amid the culture clash of new money and old (antiestablishment) values, and with the specter of our current wars looming across its words, The Portable Veblen is an unforgettable look at the way we live now.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Not what it was cracked up to be
- By Linda on 02-03-16
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Lit
- A Memoir
- By: Mary Karr
- Narrated by: Mary Karr
- Length: 12 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 998
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 741
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 737
Lit follows Mary Karr's descent into the inferno of alcoholism and madness - and her astonishing resurrection. Karr's longing for a solid family seems secure when her marriage to a handsome, Shakespeare-quoting poet produces a son they adore. But she can't outrun her apocalyptic past. She drinks herself into the same numbness that nearly devoured her charismatic but troubled mother, reaching the brink of suicide. A hair-raising stint in "The Mental Marriott" awakens her to the possibility of joy, and leads her to an unlikely faith.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Finally! One for the "Win" column
- By Kim on 03-22-10
By: Mary Karr
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Too Close to the Falls
- A Memoir
- By: Catherine Gildiner
- Narrated by: Allyson Johnson
- Length: 11 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 137
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 117
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 120
Welcome to the childhood of Catherine McClure Gildiner. It is the middle of the 1950s in Lewiston, New York, a small and sleepy American town very near Niagara Falls. No one is divorced. Mothers wear high heels to the beauty salon and children pop Pez candy and swing from vines over a local gorge. But at the tender age of four, it becomes clear to her Cathy's parents that their rambunctious daughter is no ordinary child and they soon put her "to work" at her father's pharmacy.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Brilliant and funny and touching.
- By Kindle Customer on 11-07-19
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Love Walked In
- By: Marisa de los Santos
- Narrated by: Jennifer Ikeda
- Length: 11 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 380
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 285
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Story4 out of 5 stars 289
Award-winning poet Marisa de los Santos crafts an irresistibly touching debut novel. Love Walked In is a contemporary tale, steeped in nostalgic, cinematic charm, of love in all its forms. Unapologetically idealistic about love, Cornelia Brown appears to catch the break of a lifetime when the dashing Martin Grace, her own personal Cary Grant, comes strolling into her life. But it is Martin's connection to 11-year-old Clare Hobbes that touches Cornelia's heart in ways she never imagined.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Dreadful audio quality
- By Marenghi on 09-16-11
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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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Until I Say Good-Bye
- My Year of Living with Joy
- By: Susan Spencer-Wendel, Bret Witter
- Narrated by: Karen White
- Length: 9 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 126
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 112
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 108
Susan Spencer-Wendel's Until I Say Good-Bye: My Year of Living with Joy is a moving and inspirational memoir by a woman who makes the most of her final days after discovering she has amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). After Spencer-Wendel, a celebrated journalist at the Palm Beach Post, learns of her diagnosis of ALS, more commonly known as Lou Gehrig's disease, she embarks on several adventures, traveling to several countries and sharing special experiences with loved ones.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Until I Say Good-Bye is a paradox for me.
- By Bonny on 03-19-13
By: Susan Spencer-Wendel, and others
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Everywhere I Look
- By: Helen Garner
- Narrated by: Helen Garner
- Length: 6 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 28
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 22
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 22
Spanning 15 years of work, Everywhere I Look is an audiobook full of unexpected moments, sudden shafts of light, piercing intuition, flashes of anger and incidental humour. It takes us from backstage at the ballet to the trial of a woman for the murder of her newborn baby. It moves effortlessly from the significance of moving house to the pleasure of rereading Pride and Prejudice.
By: Helen Garner
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The Daisy Children
- A Novel
- By: Sofia Grant
- Narrated by: Teri Schnaubelt
- Length: 10 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 89
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 83
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Story4 out of 5 stars 83
When Katie Garrett gets the news that she’s received an inheritance from the grandmother she hardly knew, it couldn’t have come at a better time. She flees Boston and travels to rural Texas. There, she’s greeted by her distant cousin Scarlett. Friendly and flamboyant, Scarlett couldn’t be more different from sensible Katie. And as they begin the task of sorting through their grandmother’s possessions, they discover letters and photographs that uncover the hidden truths about their shared history, and the long-forgotten tragedy of the New London school explosion of 1937 that binds them.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Multigenerational storyline lacked dignity
- By John F. Oldani, Jr. on 06-07-24
By: Sofia Grant
What listeners say about The Disappearing Andersons of Loon Lake
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
- 'Nathan
- 05-08-18
A gentle, lovely collection
I loved this.
I'm a lover of short fiction (as I'm sure everyone is already aware) and having loved Jess Wells's other works (especially A Slender Tether), this was an instant choice for me, and perfectly timed. It became a wonderful companion on an overnight flight to the UK.
Often in collections, the stories might touch each other thematically, but sometimes not even that comes together. Not so in The Disappearing Andersons of Loon Lake, where each story was a lovely complement to those that came before. I caught myself with a little smile on my face at the end of most of the tales: there's a gentle humour at play here, and—again—while flying across the ocean, it was a welcome respite indeed.
I listened to this book on audiobook, so I should add that it's such a joy to listen to a book narrated by the author when the author is so gifted at performance.
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