Lawrence
- 6
- reviews
- 5
- helpful votes
- 82
- ratings
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We Were Eight Years in Power
- An American Tragedy
- By: Ta-Nehisi Coates
- Narrated by: Beresford Bennett
- Length: 13 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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"We were eight years in power" was the lament of Reconstruction-era Black politicians as the American experiment in multiracial democracy ended with the return of white supremacist rule in the South. Now Ta-Nehisi Coates explores the tragic echoes of that history in our own time: the unprecedented election of a Black president followed by a vicious backlash that fueled the election of the man Coates argues is America's "first White president".
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Come on dude
- By Ryan Bailey on 10-04-17
- We Were Eight Years in Power
- An American Tragedy
- By: Ta-Nehisi Coates
- Narrated by: Beresford Bennett
Narrator Horribilis
Reviewed: 10-18-17
The narration of this book is the worst I've heard in hundreds of audiobooks I've listened to and I had to warn others not to purchase this.
With an odd rhythm and mismatched accent (some almost offensive), the narrator completely undermines the substance of this important work.
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3 people found this helpful
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How I Paid for College
- A Novel of Sex, Theft, Friendship, and Musical Theater
- By: Marc Acito
- Narrated by: Jeff Woodman
- Length: 10 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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From syndicated humor columnist Marc Acito comes a wildly inventive and hysterically funny novel that is equal parts Ferris Bueller's Day Off, Fame, Risky Business, Dead Poets Society, and The Catcher in the Rye.
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Funny funny funny
- By Lee on 10-06-04
- How I Paid for College
- A Novel of Sex, Theft, Friendship, and Musical Theater
- By: Marc Acito
- Narrated by: Jeff Woodman
Don't Be Fooled By the High Ratings
Reviewed: 05-04-05
While I was listening to this book, I returned to this page to read the earlier reviews and confirm the customer ratings that had convinced me to listen to it. Perhaps I'd made a mistake and the high ratings were for another book. 5-Stars for this?
This mediocre book tries so hard to be both irreverent and profound, but is just an overwritten psuedo-catcher-in-the-rye-for-the-1980s. Although this book doesn't deserve to be compared to the Salinger classic, the author is so heavy handed in his attempt to model his protagonist after Holden Caulfield that it's impossible to ignore. Just to be sure that the reader doesn't miss this, the book includes a passage in which the protagonist openly compares himself to Caulfield. At that, I laughed out loud, but not for any reason that the author had intended.
I expect we will see "How I paid For College" as a TV movie of the week or a straight to video feature, but I don't plan to waste another 2 hours with this.
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5 people found this helpful

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Underworld
- A Novel
- By: Don DeLillo
- Narrated by: Richard Poe
- Length: 31 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
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National Book Award and PEN/Faulkner Award winner and best-selling author Don DeLillo crafts a magnificent tale laying bare 20th-century American culture as defined by the Cold War. Spanning 50 years, this is a story about human relationships and how they affect one another on global and local scales. Richard Poe's brilliant performance captures the essence of each character through five decades of change.
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brilliant
- By Kathleen on 01-16-04
- Underworld
- A Novel
- By: Don DeLillo
- Narrated by: Richard Poe
Incomprehensible
Reviewed: 11-09-04
I got the feeling that this book was written in some sort of code or new language that I just couldn't understand. Perhaps this is one of those books that doesn't translate well into audiobook format.
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5 people found this helpful
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House of Sand and Fog
- By: Andre Dubus III
- Narrated by: Andre Dubus III, Fontaine Dollas Dubus
- Length: 13 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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In this riveting novel of almost unbearable suspense, three fragile yet determined people become dangerously entangled in a relentlessly escalating crisis. Colonel Behrani, once a wealthy man in Iran, is now a struggling immigrant willing to bet everything he has to restore his family's dignity. Kathy Nicolo is a troubled young woman whose house is all she has left, and who refuses to let her hard-won stability slip away from her. Sheriff Lester Burdon becomes obsessed with helping her fight for justice.
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I suspect I am going to be in the minority . . .
- By BogKid on 01-12-04
- House of Sand and Fog
- By: Andre Dubus III
- Narrated by: Andre Dubus III, Fontaine Dollas Dubus
Preposterous Plot; Moronic Characters
Reviewed: 05-29-04
One of the worst books I've ever read or heard. I could not get beyond the rediculous premise that the author seems to believe creates some great moral dilemna. Does the author expect readers to believe that an erroneous 6 month old $500 tax delinquency would result in eviction of the owner from a house worth $170K and foreclosure sale of that house for $45K on the same day? What about legal due process requirements? What happened to the sale proceeds and why weren't they given to the evicted homeowner? For those who can get past that, the story proceeds with a series of moronic and irrational actions by virtually every character in the book leading to the predictable ending. A complete waste of time.
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9 people found this helpful
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Middlesex
- By: Jeffrey Eugenides
- Narrated by: Kristoffer Tabori
- Length: 21 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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In the spring of 1974, Calliope Stephanides, a student at a girls' school in Grosse Pointe, finds herself drawn to a chain-smoking, strawberry-blonde classmate with a gift for acting. The passion that furtively develops between them - along with Callie's failure to develop physically - leads Callie to suspect that she is not like other girls. In fact, she is not really a girl at all.
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Anything but middle.
- By Michael on 05-04-03
- Middlesex
- By: Jeffrey Eugenides
- Narrated by: Kristoffer Tabori
Great, but what's with the musical interludes?
Reviewed: 06-03-03
The book is very good, but it is the reader's performance that makes this one of my favorite audiobooks ever. Mr. Tabori gives each character their unique voice and makes the story come to life. I lost myself in their world as the West Side Highway traffic crawled each day and was sad to reach the end of the book. I just don't understand who decided to include the unrelated music at the end of certain chapters (and why).
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4 people found this helpful
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Three Junes
- A Novel
- By: Julia Glass
- Narrated by: John Keating
- Length: 13 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
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Three Junes is a vividly textured symphonic novel set on both sides of the Atlantic during three fateful summers in the lives of a Scottish family. Three Junes "almost threatens to burst with all the life it contains...extraordinary," says Michael Cunningham, author of The Hours.
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Beautiful Narration of a Wonderful Story!
- By Dagmar on 01-09-03
- Three Junes
- A Novel
- By: Julia Glass
- Narrated by: John Keating
A fine listening experience
Reviewed: 03-07-03
This reading made the charaters live and the story move. Ms. Glass writes about ordinary people, living complex contemporary lives. There are no black and white problems, nor simplistic representations of good vs evil. Just real folks narrating the events of their lives in voices (captured perfectly by the reader) that rang true to me. Because of the great narration and the slower pace of the story, this might be a book that is better to listen to than to read.
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1 person found this helpful