John
- 18
- reviews
- 53
- helpful votes
- 168
- ratings
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Neverworld Wake
- By: Marisha Pessl
- Narrated by: Phoebe Strole
- Length: 8 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
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It's been one year since graduation, and Beatrice Hartley has mixed feelings about joining her friends a weekend reunion. She's right to be worried. After a night out, they narrowly avoid a collision with a car on a deserted road. Or so they believe... Back at the mansion where they are staying, a mysterious man knocks on the door during a raging storm. He tells them that they must make a choice: one of them will live, and the rest will die. And the decision must be unanimous.
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for YA fans only
- By Kryptography on 06-05-18
- Neverworld Wake
- By: Marisha Pessl
- Narrated by: Phoebe Strole
Well, it's no "Night Film. "
Reviewed: 05-10-20
I gave it a try because I was really taken with "Night Film." This one didn't work for me.
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The Dakota Winters
- A Novel
- By: Tom Barbash
- Narrated by: Jim Meskimen
- Length: 8 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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An evocative and wildly absorbing novel about the Winters, a family living in New York City’s famed Dakota apartment building in the year leading up to John Lennon’s assassination.
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Wonderful reading,love John Lennon as a character
- By Aileen on 12-13-18
- The Dakota Winters
- A Novel
- By: Tom Barbash
- Narrated by: Jim Meskimen
An Enjoyable Diversion
Reviewed: 04-16-19
The author took me on an enjoyable excursion to the past, some of it factual, some fictional. There were a lot of references and remembrances of those times that sparked my imagination. The story seems to me to suggest that America changed in that time. Being roughly the same age as the protagonist, I remember how America felt to me before and after that time. I agree, but everyone has a point in life where perspective changes, the scales fall away, and we can see the world with better balance. That's what seems to be the vague direction of the story. The author never really gets the story to a point, but I gather my own from it. It's sad too, to hear the imagined character and dialogue from John Lennon as he unknowingly approaches the day he's assassinated. At the end the story left me melancholy, and pessimistic, the same way I felt that day. Sometimes there is no point.
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1 person found this helpful
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The Satanic Verses
- By: Salman Rushdie
- Narrated by: Sam Dastor
- Length: 21 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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Inextricably linked with the fatwa called against its author in the wake of the novel’s publication, The Satanic Verses is, beyond that, a rich showcase for Salman Rushdie’s comic sensibilities, cultural observations, and unparalleled mastery of language. The book begins with two Indians plummeting from the sky after the explosion of their airliner, and proceeds through a series of metamorphoses, dreams and revelations.
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Use an audiobook to really enjoy Satanic Verses
- By David Edelberg on 11-24-12
- The Satanic Verses
- By: Salman Rushdie
- Narrated by: Sam Dastor
Hillarious, Then Profound
Reviewed: 11-27-17
This book swings effortlessly from fantastical to realistic, from hilarious to profound. It was a challenge to follow at times, and a few times I had to go back and get details that turned out to be important. It was worth the effort.
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Atlantic
- Great Sea Battles, Heroic Discoveries, Titanic Storms,and a Vast Ocean of a Million Stories
- By: Simon Winchester
- Narrated by: Simon Winchester
- Length: 14 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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Atlantic is a biography of a tremendous space that has been central to the ambitions of explorers, scientists, and warriors, and continues profoundly to affect our character, attitudes, and dreams. Spanning the ocean's story, from its geological origins to the age of exploration, from World War II battles to today's struggles with pollution and overfishing, Winchester's narrative is epic, intimate, and awe inspiring.
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Starts Better Than it Finishes
- By Ray on 12-18-10
- Atlantic
- Great Sea Battles, Heroic Discoveries, Titanic Storms,and a Vast Ocean of a Million Stories
- By: Simon Winchester
- Narrated by: Simon Winchester
Perspective
Reviewed: 10-31-17
I enjoyed the creative idea at the root of this story. - telling the history of the Atlantic Ocean as a means of resetting one's perspective on our planet. The author does a nice job of weaving the geological, oceanic, and anthropologic history into an entertaining read.
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A Column of Fire
- By: Ken Follett
- Narrated by: John Lee
- Length: 30 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
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In 1558 the ancient stones of Kingsbridge Cathedral look down on a city torn apart by religious conflict. As power in England shifts precariously between Catholics and Protestants, high principles clash bloodily with friendship, loyalty, and love. Ned Willard wants nothing more than to marry Margery Fitzgerald. But when the lovers find themselves on opposing sides of the religious divide sweeping across the country, Ned goes to work for Princess Elizabeth. When she becomes queen, all Europe turns against England.
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WONDERFUL--As Good as Pillars of the Earth!
- By 070316 on 09-13-17
- A Column of Fire
- By: Ken Follett
- Narrated by: John Lee
Skip It
Reviewed: 10-22-17
This was a horrible conclusion (?) to the Pillars of the Earth series. Don't waste your time. It descended into an ill-conceived morass of predictability and pornography.
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2 people found this helpful
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A Strangeness in My Mind
- A Novel
- By: Orhan Pamuk, Ekin Oklap - translator
- Narrated by: John Lee
- Length: 21 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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Since his boyhood Mevlut Karataş has fantasized about what his life would become. Not getting as far in school as he'd hoped, at the age of 12 he comes to Istanbul - "the center of the world" - and is immediately enthralled by both the old city that is disappearing and the new one that is fast being built. He follows his father's trade, selling boza on the street and hoping to become rich like other villagers who have settled the desolate hills outside the booming metropolis. But luck never seems to be on Mevlut's side.
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A Strangeness in My Mind: A Delight for my Commute
- By Andrea Frank on 03-19-16
- A Strangeness in My Mind
- A Novel
- By: Orhan Pamuk, Ekin Oklap - translator
- Narrated by: John Lee
Another Fantastic Journey
Reviewed: 09-10-17
Another rich weave of characters, culture, and circumstance. The protagonist is a simple, honest, and hardworking man. Pamuk chronicles the details of his life, and the interactions with his family with the evolution of modern Istanbul as the backdrop. The story is dignified, and intimate. His writing is melodic, and the characters are fully realized. I've never been disappointed by this author.
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A Dark-Adapted Eye
- By: Barbara Vine
- Narrated by: Harriet Walter
- Length: 11 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
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Like most families, they had their secrets...and they hid them under a genteelly respectable veneer. No onlooker would guess that prim Vera Hillyard and her beautiful, adored younger sister, Eden, were locked in a dark and bitter combat over one of those secrets. England in the '50s was not kind to women who erred, so they had to use every means necessary to keep the truth hidden behind closed doors - even murder.
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Even better in audio form
- By Jennifer on 08-20-11
- A Dark-Adapted Eye
- By: Barbara Vine
- Narrated by: Harriet Walter
A Few
Reviewed: 08-30-16
A few mispronounced words in the performance, but otherwise a nice job at giving each character a voice that fit. The story had a lot of interesting characters, but did very little with them in either growth, or action. I like the language very much.
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3 people found this helpful
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The Last Tribe
- By: Brad Manuel
- Narrated by: Scott Brick
- Length: 22 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
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Fourteen-year-old Greg Dixon is living a nightmare. Attending boarding school outside of Boston, he is separated from his family when a pandemic strikes. His classmates and teachers are dead, rotting in a dormitory-turned-morgue steps from his room. The nights are getting colder, and his food has run out. The last message from his father is to get away from the city and to meet at his grandparents' town in remote New Hampshire.
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A perfect year in the post apocalypse.
- By Andrew Pollack on 06-18-16
- The Last Tribe
- By: Brad Manuel
- Narrated by: Scott Brick
Great Story
Reviewed: 08-17-16
It's a clean, straight-forward story. It's refreshing. This is a good book for a mature teen.
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Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and his Years of Pilgrimage
- A novel
- By: Haruki Murakami, Philip Gabriel - translator
- Narrated by: Bruce Locke
- Length: 10 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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The new novel - a book that sold more than a million copies the first week it went on sale in Japan - from the internationally acclaimed author, his first since IQ84. Here he gives us the remarkable story of Tsukuru Tazaki, a young man haunted by a great loss; of dreams and nightmares that have unintended consequences for the world around us; and of a journey into the past that is necessary to mend the present. It is a story of love, friendship, and heartbreak for the ages.
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Great book ruined by the narration
- By David on 08-14-14
- Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and his Years of Pilgrimage
- A novel
- By: Haruki Murakami, Philip Gabriel - translator
- Narrated by: Bruce Locke
Always Different
Reviewed: 08-20-15
The only things that are recurrent in Murakami's novels are rich characters, wonderful stories, and introspection.
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Earthly Powers
- By: Anthony Burgess
- Narrated by: Gordon Griffin
- Length: 37 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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Kenneth Toomey is an eminent novelist of dubious talent; Don Carlo Campanati is a man of God, a shrewd manipulator who rises through the Vatican to become the architect of church revolution and a candidate for sainthood. These two men are linked not only by family ties but by a common understanding of mankind's frailties. In this epic masterpiece, Anthony Burgess plumbs the depths of the essence of power and the lengths men will go for it.
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Worth it for the opening line alone
- By Martin on 05-31-15
- Earthly Powers
- By: Anthony Burgess
- Narrated by: Gordon Griffin
An Interesting Life
Reviewed: 02-09-15
What did you love best about Earthly Powers?
I liked this story. It follows a boy through old age, and weaves a sweeping tale with the historical events of the 21st century as a backdrop. There's excellent development of characters.
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4 people found this helpful