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The Interestings
- A Novel
- Narrated by: Jen Tullock
- Length: 15 hrs and 41 mins
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Publisher's summary
“Remarkable.... With this book [Wolitzer] has surpassed herself.” (The New York Times Book Review)
"A victory.... The Interestings secures Wolitzer's place among the best novelists of her generation.... She's every bit as literary as Franzen or Eugenides. But the very human moments in her work hit you harder than the big ideas. This isn't women's fiction. It's everyone's." (Entertainment Weekly)
A New York Times best-selling novel by Meg Wolitzer that has been called "genius" (Chicago Tribune), “wonderful” (Vanity Fair), "ambitious" (San Francisco Chronicle), and a “page-turner” (Cosmopolitan), which The New York Times Book Review says is "among the ranks of books like Jonathan Franzen’s Freedom and Jeffrey Eugenides' The Marriage Plot."
The summer that Nixon resigns, six teenagers at a summer camp for the arts become inseparable. Decades later the bond remains powerful, but so much else has changed. In The Interestings, Wolitzer follows these characters from the height of youth through middle age, as their talents, fortunes, and degrees of satisfaction diverge.
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Wide in scope, ambitious, and populated by complex characters who come together and apart in a changing New York City, The Interestings explores the meaning of talent; the nature of envy; the roles of class, art, money, and power; and how all of it can shift and tilt precipitously over the course of a friendship and a life.
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- By ayodele higgs on 05-20-15
By: Asali Solomon
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Wilde Lake
- A Novel
- By: Laura Lippman
- Narrated by: Kathleen McInerney, Nicole Poole
- Length: 10 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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Luisa "Lu" Brant is the newly elected - and first female - state's attorney of Howard County, Maryland, a job in which her widower father famously served. Fiercely intelligent and ambitious, she sees an opportunity to make her name by trying a mentally disturbed drifter accused of beating a woman to death in her home. It's not the kind of case that makes headlines, but peaceful Howard County doesn't see many homicides.
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In a word saccharine and boring
- By Rena on 05-12-16
By: Laura Lippman
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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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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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No need to check your scepticism at the door!
- By Orlando on 08-23-13
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The Unspeakable
- And Other Subjects of Discussion
- By: Meghan Daum
- Narrated by: Meghan Daum
- Length: 6 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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It's a report tempered by hard times. In "Matricide", Daum unflinchingly describes a parent's death and the uncomfortable emotions it provokes; and in "Diary of a Coma" she relates her own journey to the twilight of the mind. But Daum also operates in a comic register. With perfect precision, she reveals the absurdities of the marriage-industrial complex, of the New Age dating market, and of the peculiar habits of the young and digital.
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Complaining about her dead mom.
- By Erik Hermansen on 11-23-14
By: Meghan Daum
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Member of the Family
- My Story of Charles Manson, Life Inside His Cult, and the Darkness That Ended the Sixties
- By: Dianne Lake, Deborah Herman
- Narrated by: Dianne Lake
- Length: 12 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
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In this poignant and disturbing memoir of lost innocence, coercion, survival, and healing, Dianne Lake chronicles her years with Charles Manson, revealing for the first time how she became the youngest member of his Family and offering new insights into one of the 20th century's most notorious criminals and life as one of his "girls". While much has been written about Charles Manson, this riveting account from an actual Family member is a chilling portrait that recreates in vivid detail one of the most horrifying chapters in modern American history.
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Dianne sets the record straight . . . Finally.
- By POLLY POIZENDEM on 11-18-17
By: Dianne Lake, and others
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Here's the Story
- Surviving Marcia Brady and Finding My True Voice
- By: Maureen McCormick
- Narrated by: Maureen McCormick
- Length: 5 hrs and 58 mins
- Abridged
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Marcia Brady, eldest daughter on television's The Brady Bunch, had it all. But what viewers didn't know about the always sunny, perfect Marcia was that offscreen, her real-life counterpart, Maureen McCormick was living a very different - and not so wonderful - life. Maureen tells the shocking and inspirational true story of the beloved teen and the woman she became.
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Gripping
- By Chris on 08-12-14
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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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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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This one is just not for me
- By Pamela Plimpton on 03-15-19
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I'm Supposed to Protect You from All This
- A Memoir
- By: Nadja Spiegelman
- Narrated by: Nadja Spiegelman
- Length: 11 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
For a long time, Nadja Spiegelman believed her mother was a fairy. More than her famous father, Maus creator Art Spiegelman, and even more than most mothers, hers - French-born New Yorker art director Françoise Mouly - exerted a force over reality that was both dazzling and daunting. As Nadja's body changed and "began to whisper to the adults around me in a language I did not understand", their relationship grew tense.
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Aweful
- By Haley Abreu on 07-05-17
By: Nadja Spiegelman
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She Regrets Nothing
- A Novel
- By: Andrea Dunlop
- Narrated by: Rachel Dulude
- Length: 11 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
When Laila Lawrence becomes an orphan at 23, the sudden loss unexpectedly introduces her to three glamorous cousins from New York who show up unannounced at her mother's funeral. The three siblings are scions of the wealthy family from which Laila's father had been estranged long before his own untimely demise 10 years before. Two years later, Laila has left behind her quiet life in Grosse Point, Michigan to move to New York City, landing her smack in the middle of her cousins' decadent world.
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Good Listen
- By Vallena on 02-19-18
By: Andrea Dunlop
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Bettyville
- By: George Hodgman
- Narrated by: Jeff Woodman
- Length: 10 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
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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Title Should Be Georgeville-It's All About George
- By Sara on 10-08-15
By: George Hodgman
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32 Candles
- A Novel
- By: Ernessa T. Carter
- Narrated by: Adenrele Ojo
- Length: 11 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Davie—an ugly duckling growing up in small-town Mississippi—is positive her life couldn’t be any worse. She has the meanest mother in the South, possibly the world, and on top of that, she’s pretty sure she’s ugly. Just when she’s resigned herself to her fate, she sees a movie that will change her life— Sixteen Candles. But in her case, life doesn’t imitate art.
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2 High Fives - for Monkey Night
- By Nevada on 10-03-12
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Finding Fish
- A Memoir
- By: Antwone Q. Fisher
- Narrated by: Thomas Penny
- Length: 12 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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Performance
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Story
Baby Boy Fisher was raised in institutions from the moment of his birth in prison to a single mother. He ultimately came to live with a foster family, where he endured near-constant verbal and physical abuse. In his midteens he escaped and enlisted in the navy, where he became a man of the world, raised by the family he created for himself. Finding Fish shows how, out of this unlikely mix of deprivation and hope, an artist was born.
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This book will not disappoint you.
- By Joseph on 10-16-16
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Quitting 3 hours in and returning it
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A bit of a downer
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For a group of four New York friends, the past decade has been largely defined by marriage and motherhood. Educated and reared to believe that they would conquer the world, they then left prestigious jobs to stay home with their babies. What was meant to be a temporary leave of absence has lasted a decade. Now, at age 40, with the halcyon days of young motherhood behind them and without professions to define them, Amy, Jill, Roberta, and Karen face a life that is not what they were brought up to expect but seems to be the one they have chosen.
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Ten Year Nap
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Chris Power’s stories are peopled by men and women who find themselves at crossroads or dead ends - characters who search without knowing what they seek. Their paths lead them to thresholds, bridges, rivers, and sites of mysterious, irresistible connection to the past. A woman uses her mother’s old travel guide, aged years beyond relevance, to navigate on a journey to nowhere; a stand-up comic with writer’s block performs a fateful gig at a cocaine-fueled bachelor party; on holiday in Greece, a father must confront the limits to which he can keep his daughters safe.
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DNF because of intolerable narrator
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When the elliptical new drama teacher at Stellar Plains High School chooses for the school play Lysistrata—the comedy by Aristophanes in which women stop having sex with men in order to end a war—a strange spell seems to be cast over the school. Or, at least, over the women. One by one, throughout the high school community, perfectly healthy, normal women and teenage girls turn away from their husbands and boyfriends in the bedroom, for reasons they don’t really understand.
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A Pleasant Surprise
- By Curt on 09-25-11
By: Meg Wolitzer
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The Position
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In 1975 Paul and Roz Mellow wrote a best-selling Joy of Sex-type book that mortified their four school-aged children and ultimately changed the shape of the family forever. Thirty years later, as the now dispersed family members argue over whether to reissue the book, we follow the complicated lives of each of the grown children and their conflicts in love, work, marriage, parenting, and, of course, sex - all shadowed by the indelible specter of their highly sexualized parents.
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Audible detracted from novel
- By NursePam on 03-30-18
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Quitting 3 hours in and returning it
- By NMwritergal on 04-07-18
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The Wife
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The moment Joan Castleman decides to leave her husband, they are 35,000 feet above the ocean on a flight to Helsinki. Joan's husband, Joseph, is one of America's preeminent novelists, about to receive a prestigious international award, and Joan, who has spent 40 years subjugating her own literary talents to fan the flames of his career, has finally decided to stop.
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A bit of a downer
- By Jody Cox on 08-01-18
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For a group of four New York friends, the past decade has been largely defined by marriage and motherhood. Educated and reared to believe that they would conquer the world, they then left prestigious jobs to stay home with their babies. What was meant to be a temporary leave of absence has lasted a decade. Now, at age 40, with the halcyon days of young motherhood behind them and without professions to define them, Amy, Jill, Roberta, and Karen face a life that is not what they were brought up to expect but seems to be the one they have chosen.
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Ten Year Nap
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Chris Power’s stories are peopled by men and women who find themselves at crossroads or dead ends - characters who search without knowing what they seek. Their paths lead them to thresholds, bridges, rivers, and sites of mysterious, irresistible connection to the past. A woman uses her mother’s old travel guide, aged years beyond relevance, to navigate on a journey to nowhere; a stand-up comic with writer’s block performs a fateful gig at a cocaine-fueled bachelor party; on holiday in Greece, a father must confront the limits to which he can keep his daughters safe.
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DNF because of intolerable narrator
- By clevahgrrl on 09-17-24
By: Chris Power
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The Uncoupling
- By: Meg Wolitzer
- Narrated by: Angela Brazil
- Length: 7 hrs and 28 mins
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Overall
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When the elliptical new drama teacher at Stellar Plains High School chooses for the school play Lysistrata—the comedy by Aristophanes in which women stop having sex with men in order to end a war—a strange spell seems to be cast over the school. Or, at least, over the women. One by one, throughout the high school community, perfectly healthy, normal women and teenage girls turn away from their husbands and boyfriends in the bedroom, for reasons they don’t really understand.
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A Pleasant Surprise
- By Curt on 09-25-11
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In 1975 Paul and Roz Mellow wrote a best-selling Joy of Sex-type book that mortified their four school-aged children and ultimately changed the shape of the family forever. Thirty years later, as the now dispersed family members argue over whether to reissue the book, we follow the complicated lives of each of the grown children and their conflicts in love, work, marriage, parenting, and, of course, sex - all shadowed by the indelible specter of their highly sexualized parents.
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Audible detracted from novel
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To Night Owl from Dogfish
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Avery Bloom, who's bookish, intense, and afraid of many things, particularly deep water, lives in New York City. Bett Devlin, who's fearless, outgoing, and loves all animals as well as the ocean, lives in California. What they have in common is that they are both 12 years old and are both being raised by single, gay dads. When their dads fall in love, Bett and Avery are sent, against their will, to the same sleepaway camp. Their dads hope they will find common ground and become friends - and possibly, one day, even sisters.
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Charming and funny
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One summer in the 60s, in a staid suburb south of London, Paul comes home from university, aged 19, and is urged by his mother to join the tennis club. In the mixed-doubles tournament he's partnered with Susan Macleod, a fine player who's 48, confident, ironic, and married, with two nearly adult daughters. She is also a warm companion, their bond immediate. And they soon, inevitably, are lovers. Clinging to each other as though their lives depend on it, they then set up house in London to escape his parents and the abusive Mr. Mcleod.
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The Only Story
- By KP on 09-21-18
By: Julian Barnes
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Modern Lovers
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From the author of the New York Times best sellers All Adults Here and This Time Tomorrow, a smart, highly entertaining novel about a tight-knit group of friends from college - and what it means to finally grow up, well after adulthood has set in. Friends and former college bandmates Elizabeth and Andrew and Zoe have watched one another marry, buy real estate, and start businesses and families, all while trying to hold on to the identities of their youth. But nothing ages them like having to suddenly pass the torch to their own offspring.
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Very enjoyable!
- By G on 06-10-16
By: Emma Straub
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The Marriage Plot
- By: Jeffrey Eugenides
- Narrated by: David Pittu
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- Unabridged
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It's the early 1980s—the country is in a deep recession, and life after college is harder than ever. In the cafés on College Hill, the wised-up kids are inhaling Derrida and listening to Talking Heads. But Madeleine Hanna, dutiful English major, is writing her senior thesis on Jane Austen and George Eliot, purveyors of the marriage plot that lies at the heart of the greatest English novels.
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Esoteric, Vapid, Trite
- By FanB14 on 03-13-13
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Kitchens of the Great Midwest
- A Novel
- By: J. Ryan Stradal
- Narrated by: Amy Ryan, Michael Stuhlbarg
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- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Kitchens of the Great Midwest is about a young woman with a once-in-a-generation palate who becomes the iconic chef behind the country's most coveted dinner reservation. When Lars Thorvald's wife, Cynthia, falls in love with wine - and a dashing sommelier - he's left to raise their baby, Eva, on his own. He's determined to pass on his love of food to his daughter - starting with puréed pork shoulder. As Eva grows, she finds her solace and salvation in the flavors of her native Minnesota.
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unevenly cooked!
- By joyce on 10-13-15
By: J. Ryan Stradal
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Beautiful Days
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Performance
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Story
A collection of 13 mesmerizing stories by American master Joyce Carol Oates, including the 2017 Pushcart Prize-winning "Undocumented Alien". The diverse stories of Beautiful Days explore the most secret, intimate, and unacknowledged interior lives of characters not unlike ourselves, who assert their independence in acts of bold and often irrevocable defiance.
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Poor editing
- By Needles on 11-18-18
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The Signature of All Things
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- By: Elizabeth Gilbert
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- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
In The Signature of All Things, Elizabeth Gilbert returns to fiction, inserting her inimitable voice into an enthralling story of love, adventure and discovery. Spanning much of the 18th and 19th centuries, the novel follows the fortunes of the extraordinary Whittaker family as led by the enterprising Henry Whittaker - a poor-born Englishman who makes a great fortune in the South American quinine trade, eventually becoming the richest man in Philadelphia.
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Don't miss this one
- By Molly-o on 12-27-13
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The Emperor's Children
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Overall
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Performance
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Friends at Brown University, Marina, Danielle, and Julius are still looking to make their marks as they approach their 30s. Marina lives with her celebrated parents on the Upper West Side while trying to complete her book. TV producer Danielle's success is due to the puff pieces she churns out. Freelance critic Julius can barely make ends meet. Into this mix comes Bootie, Marina's college dropout cousin, who is just the catalyst the three friends need to start making significant changes in their lives.
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This is a best seller?
- By Amazon Customer on 03-21-07
By: Claire Messud
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Telex from Cuba
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Young Everly Lederer and K.C. Stites come of age in Oriente Province, where the Americans tend their own fiefdom - 300,000 acres of United Fruit Company sugarcane that surround their gated enclave. If the rural tropics are a child's dreamworld, Everly and K.C. nevertheless have keen eyes for the indulgences and betrayals of the grown-ups around them - the mordant drinking and illicit loves, the race hierarchies and violence. In Havana, 1,000 kilometers and a world away from the American colony, a cabaret dancer meets a French agitator named Christian de La Mazière.
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So-so
- By Lissa Goldman on 06-14-23
By: Rachel Kushner
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My Year of Rest and Relaxation
- By: Ottessa Moshfegh
- Narrated by: Julia Whelan
- Length: 7 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Our narrator should be happy, shouldn't she? She's young, thin, pretty, a recent Columbia graduate; she works an easy job at a hip art gallery and lives in an apartment on the Upper East Side of Manhattan paid for, like the rest of her needs, by her inheritance. But there is a dark and vacuous hole in her heart, and it isn't just the loss of her parents, or the way her Wall Street boyfriend treats her, or her sadomasochistic relationship with her best friend, Reva. It's the year 2000 in a city aglitter with wealth and possibility; what could be so terribly wrong?
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I love it...
- By Claudia Gallegos on 07-12-18
By: Ottessa Moshfegh
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A Widow for One Year
- A Novel
- By: John Irving
- Narrated by: George Guidall
- Length: 24 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Ruth Cole is a complex, often self-contradictory character — a "difficult" woman. Her story is told in three parts, each focusing on a crucial time in her life. When we first meet her, Ruth is only four. The second window into Ruth's life opens when she is an unmarried woman whose personal life is not nearly as successful as her literary career. The novel closes in the autumn of 1995, when Ruth is a 41-year-old widow and mother — and about to fall in love for the first time.
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More than a door in the floor
- By Grace on 05-24-09
By: John Irving
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Fates and Furies
- A Novel
- By: Lauren Groff
- Narrated by: Will Damron, Julia Whelan
- Length: 14 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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Story
From the award-winning, New York Times best-selling author of The Monsters of Templeton, Arcadia, Florida and Matrix, an exhilarating novel about marriage, creativity, art, and perception. Fates and Furies is a literary masterpiece that defies expectation. A dazzling examination of a marriage, it is also a portrait of creative partnership written by one of the best writers of her generation. Every story has two sides. Every relationship has two perspectives.
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Paean to Marriage, Mythology and Theatre
- By W Perry Hall on 09-20-15
By: Lauren Groff
What listeners say about The Interestings
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- js
- 11-11-22
One of my favorites
This is one of those novels that’s so entertaining you could miss how finely wrought it is. Really manages to cover the variegated stories of 6 friends through half a lifetime and also be a fun summer camp novel. Narrator is perfect too.
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- NWDC
- 04-26-24
Loved this. Funny, familiar, original
I was in a reading rut when this book came out and so glad Audible and Goodreads led me hear. Hilarious, sardonic but full of warmth and compassion. Really took me back to the 80s.
It would have been easy to make Ash and some of the others total stereotypes in an effort to lampoon their privilege but Wolitzer makes sure to give each character fully realized, rounded, generous but honest personalities.
My only criticism is that autism spectrum wasn’t in the DMV until 1994, and I doubt it would be common parlance in the 80s? In fact I think many still said “idiot savant” in the late 70s!!
Love this narrator too. Wish she did more! I had already listened to her Lisa Jewell novel.
This reminds me of Jonathan Franzen though, obviously, far less male.
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- L. Barrell
- 07-02-13
Disappointing
Where does The Interestings rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?
Ultimately, this audiobook lands at the bottom of my total library audiobooks in terms of overall enjoyment. Although it started out sounding like it would be an interesting story by about halfway through it started to feel like it was too long and I found myself wishing it would end.. The narration became tiresome, despite the speed of the narrator's reading. She read it so fast that it took a few minutes for me to adjust to it but within a short while I no longer had any problem following the story,
Who was your favorite character and why?
The protagonist who is the main focus was an interesting enough character but rather predictable. Initially it was easy to relate to much of the friends and their subsequent lives from the summer they all met. As a teenager from the metropolitan New York City area myself, there were many references made that brought back memories from my own life.But after a while, there was simply too much predictable elements to the story and it became boring.
Did the narration match the pace of the story?
The narrator sounded very rushed as if she could not read the words fast enough. But I quickly got accustomed to the fast pace although it was initially irritating. The irony is that by about halfway through the audiobook, I was wishing it would go faster! The narrator was still reading at the same speed, but the story was making it seem drawn out.
Any additional comments?
Perhaps the problem for me with this particular book is me and my personal opinion of this novel. Most people seem to have really enjoyed it but I just could not keep interested in the story or the development of the individual characters. I got impatient with it and simply lost interest. I do not want to give others who may read this review the idea that this was all that bad an audiobook. But frankly, the vast majority of the many audiobooks I have listened to in the last few months were on average, very enjoyable and quite a few have been outstanding. As my mother used to say "There's no accounting for taste". This book was not to my liking: "one man's meat is another man's poison" EB White said, I believe. It just was not for me.
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- Bonny
- 04-23-13
A little talent may be an awful, plaguing thing.
My mother used to tell me that a little knowledge was a dangerous thing, and it seems as if a little talent may also be dangerous. The epigram by Mary Robison that Meg Wolitzer chose for The Interestings sums up the book perfectly, “That to own only a little talent … was an awful, plaguing thing; that being only a little special meant you expected too much, most of the time, and liked yourself too little." The Interestings explores the relationships and differentiation between talent and success, jealousy and envy, friendship and love, happiness and self-acceptance, and how luck, money (or the lack of it), and biology figure into our lives.
Six teenagers meet at a summer camp for the arts in 1974, where they can showcase and develop the talents (animation, acting, dance, and music) that make them special. In the self-centered way of teenagers, the group dubs themselves “The Interestings”, and this novel follows their paths for the next forty years. Much of the narration comes from Julie/Jules Jacobson, an aspiring actress, who attends the camp on scholarship and is self-consciously amazed at being included in the group of wealthier, cooler kids, even into adulthood. The lives of cartoonist Ethan Figman, theatrical Ash Wolf and her brother Goodman, musician Jonah Bay, and dancer Cathy Kiplinger intersect, head in different directions, and reconnect. Their secrets are explored and divulged. Jules marries an absolutely ordinary sonogram technician, Dennis, who provides some exceptional wisdom, despite or because of his ordinariness.
One of the best things about this novel is that Wolitzer writes her characters as human beings. Characters with genius, talent, and persistence are not completely perfect and completely ordinary characters have some moments of brilliance. I also love how she gives us insight into her characters’ intriguing thoughts, especially Ethan’s.
"Ash Wolf actually desired him. It seemed so unlikely, but then again, so did many things in life. Lying against her that first time, he started making a list:
1. The existence of peacocks.
2. The fact that John Lennon and Paul McCartney just happened to meet each other as teenagers.
3. Halley ’s Comet.
4. Walt Disney's unbearably gorgeous Snow White.”
Because the novel has a large scope, there are many cultural details and references. The characters discuss sexist attitudes about rape, child labor, the Moonies, and TED-like conferences. Politics, HIV/AIDS, restaurants, finance, and September 11 are mentioned, but some of these seem to be gratuitous ways to mark the passing of time. Forty years and six main characters plus peripherals is a long time and a lot of people, and sometimes the plot becomes a little thin. Wolitzer writes all this non-chronologically, which I’m still a bit ambivalent about. Overall, this novel of how we all have to realign our expectations as time marches on is a worthwhile and dare I say, interesting read.
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- John Braine
- 05-07-14
Way overhyped
Any additional comments?
Here was my experience of The Interestings.
1. I google "best books of 2013"
2. I click the Barnes and Noble link, and then click on something called "The Interestings"
3. I read "She's every bit as literary as Franzen or Eugenides" - ooh! that's me completely sold!
4. Initial excitement wanes quickly. I'm thinking "This is as literary as Bridget Jones' Diary" and then I just get more and more annoyed with the book and the characters. It reads more to me like an average Young Adult novel featuring teenagers who are smug enough and annoying enough to call themselves "The Interestings" (even if tongue-in-cheek).
5. Maybe a third of the way and finally start to get over the fact that Meg Wolitzer is not in the same league as Franzen or Euginedes by a long shot. I try not to let expectation be the sole destroyer of this book. I try to appreciate it on it's own terms but I'm still annoyed with a few things. Even if the way-overhyped quotes in best-of-the-year lists don't ruin it by high expectation alone, the title doesn't do it any favours either. They're not that interesting! And someone needs to tell Wolitzer about "show don't tell". She keeps *telling* us how funny Jules is yet she never made me laugh once.
I think the cruel truth here is that Wolitzer is a lot less interesting and funny than she thinks she is, which is just another bullet this book shoots itself in the foot with.
Despite all of the above, I didn't hate it - I enjoyed a lot of it but if it had a different title, and I stumbled across it in less magnanimous context, I might have enjoyed it a hell of a lot more.
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- Syd Young
- 08-04-13
The thirty something or boomers
This book made me miserable, BUT true to contemporary literary offerings, it gives alot to consider about the lives and times of these baby boomers. In the end, I'm glad I read it and glad Meg branched out and wrote it.
Here is the unlikely premise, which allows us to explore the thoughts and actions of this generation: Sad and ordinary girl meets the "it" brother and sister at summer artistic camp and is invited into their click of friends. One of them will eventually become the Bill Gates of a Hollywood Cartoon Empire, one will be accused of a crime, one will almost always do the right thing and end up marrying well but will have other sorrows, one will face being gay and get over a childhood trauma, and another will remain the source of comfort in her bitter ordinariness. But they will remain friends throughout the twists and turns of life.
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- Sigrid Macdonald
- 01-09-19
Very entertaining
This was a great book. I don't know why it got so many reviews about being boring or predictable. I loved the characters and found the story to be quite entertaining.
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- Sudi
- 07-14-13
The Interestings are Kinda
Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?
Maybe, maybe not. The Interestings has the potential for some great character development but sorta disappoints with predictability.
Any additional comments?
With 60s being such a deep field of events, The Interestings could have opened up a little more to the pop culture relative to the characters lives. They seemed a little claustrophobic in their involvements...But hey, you don't see me writing any novels so I give kuods to all authors. And I did listen to the entire book to see what would happen. That is always a gold star for a writer.
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- VE
- 04-17-18
Thoughtful
Lifelong friendships movingly depicted. Interest in the interestings never lags as the characters grow from adolescence into adulthood.
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- Steve
- 07-18-13
Fun book, not a great performance
While I enjoyed the book a lot and some of Wolitzer's observations about the 7o's, art, creativity, modern life--I found the reading to be excruciating at times. Nothing takes you out of an audiobook more than a mispronounced word (there are several); the transitions between chapters and sections are much too abrupt. Really not a pleasant listening experience. I don't fault the reader, who was basically find, but the production team on this one.
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