harringtonhound
- 14
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- 3
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A Tale of Two Cities
- The Audible Dickens Collection
- By: Charles Dickens, Simon Callow - introduction
- Narrated by: Simon Callow
- Length: 15 hrs
- Unabridged
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Exclusively from Audible. 'It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.' So begins Charles Dickens' most famous historical drama: a gripping tale of war, social injustice and the choice between darkness and light. After being unjustly imprisoned for 18 years, French doctor Manette is released from the Bastille jail in Paris and embarks upon a journey to London in the hope of finding the daughter he never met.
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Very Good But Not The Best On Audible--
- By Gillian on 02-08-18
- A Tale of Two Cities
- The Audible Dickens Collection
- By: Charles Dickens, Simon Callow - introduction
- Narrated by: Simon Callow
Amazing performance!!
Reviewed: 12-03-22
I want Simon Callow to read all of Dickens!!!! The introduction written by Callow is wonderful, too.
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Ragtime
- By: E. L. Doctorow
- Narrated by: E. L. Doctorow
- Length: 7 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
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The story opens in 1906 in New Rochelle, New York, at the home of an affluent American family. One lazy Sunday afternoon, the famous escape artist Harry Houdini swerves his car into a telephone pole outside their house. And almost magically, the line between fantasy and historical fact, between real and imaginary characters, disappears.
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too good for words
- By connie on 10-05-08
- Ragtime
- By: E. L. Doctorow
- Narrated by: E. L. Doctorow
Meh?
Reviewed: 09-15-22
Blandly over-sensationalized. Although, I think a lot of this will stick with me for a long time. I think I was expecting more of a story line, and not so much of list of historical stuff. It did inspire me to listen to the soundtrack of The Sting. I enjoyed that.
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The Dutch House
- A Novel
- By: Ann Patchett
- Narrated by: Tom Hanks
- Length: 9 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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At the end of the Second World War, Cyril Conroy combines luck and a single canny investment to begin an enormous real estate empire, propelling his family from poverty to enormous wealth. His first order of business is to buy the Dutch House, a lavish estate in the suburbs outside of Philadelphia. Meant as a surprise for his wife, the house sets in motion the undoing of everyone he loves. The story is told by Cyril’s son Danny, as he and his older sister, the brilliantly acerbic and self-assured Maeve, are exiled from the house where they grew up by their stepmother.
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Not my favorite Patchett
- By Regina on 12-07-19
- The Dutch House
- A Novel
- By: Ann Patchett
- Narrated by: Tom Hanks
Tom Hanks is the perfect narrator for this book!
Reviewed: 03-05-20
I think I saw a negative review of this book where the person complained that “nothing happens.” I LOVE books like this. In it’s way, it’s very British like that. This book is a story told largely through dialogue and it’s wonderful. Tom Hanks manages to add another delicious layer of reality on the whole thing. I think this is the best of Ann Patchett’s work. She always provides images that stay with me, but in pieces. This book, “where nothing happens” remains absolutely vivid all the way through.
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American Oligarchs
- The Kushners, the Trumps, and the Marriage of Money and Power
- By: Andrea Bernstein
- Narrated by: Andrea Bernstein
- Length: 15 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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In American Oligarchs, award-winning investigative journalist Andrea Bernstein creates a vivid portrait of two emblematic American families. Their journey to the White House is a story of survival and loss, crime and betrayal, which stretches from the Gilded Age through Nazi-occupied Poland to the rising nationalism and inequality of the 21st century. Drawing on hundreds of interviews and over 100,000 pages of documents, many previously unseen or long forgotten, Bernstein traces how the families grew rich on federal programs that bolstered the middle class.
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Informative, Interesting and Illuminating
- By Phyllis on 02-27-20
- American Oligarchs
- The Kushners, the Trumps, and the Marriage of Money and Power
- By: Andrea Bernstein
- Narrated by: Andrea Bernstein
Brilliant journalism!
Reviewed: 02-28-20
As thorough as this book is, it never becomes too dense to follow. And it is exhaustively thorough! I listened to all of the Trump, Inc. podcast (to date) before embarking on the book—this helped me follow the details. And there are a ton of details.
The history and degree of corruption that has led to our current political state is documented in stunning detail. Many of the “fun facts” go back to Nixon and Ford administrations.
I look forward to any future work by Andrea Bernstein. She is a brilliant journalist.
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2 people found this helpful
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Kushner, Inc.
- Greed. Ambition. Corruption. The Extraordinary Story of Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump
- By: Vicky Ward
- Narrated by: Fiona Hardingham, Vicky Ward - introduction
- Length: 9 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump are the self-styled prince and princess of America. Their swift, gilded rise to extraordinary power in Donald Trump’s White House is unprecedented, unconstitutional, and dangerous. In Kushner, Inc., investigative journalist Vicky Ward digs beneath the myth the couple has created that depicts themselves as the voices of reason in an otherwise crazy presidency and reveals that Jared and Ivanka are not just the president’s chief enablers, they are, like him, disdainful of rules, of laws, and of ethics.
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Great story but narrator was a disaster
- By Lmaris on 03-20-19
- Kushner, Inc.
- Greed. Ambition. Corruption. The Extraordinary Story of Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump
- By: Vicky Ward
- Narrated by: Fiona Hardingham, Vicky Ward - introduction
Meh.
Reviewed: 03-25-19
A little too breathless, a little too breezy, and certainly not well-edited.
That said, a diverting listen. No surprises—but a confirming look into the lives of the ridiculously wealthy.
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1 person found this helpful
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Exit West
- A Novel
- By: Mohsin Hamid
- Narrated by: Mohsin Hamid
- Length: 4 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
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In a country teetering on the brink of civil war, two young people meet - sensual, fiercely independent Nadia and gentle, restrained Saeed. They embark on a furtive love affair, and are soon cloistered in a premature intimacy by the unrest roiling their city. When it explodes, turning familiar streets into a patchwork of checkpoints and bomb blasts, they begin to hear whispers about doors - doors that can whisk people far away, if perilously and for a price. As the violence escalates, Nadia and Saeed decide that they no longer have a choice.
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Where to Live?
- By David on 04-04-17
- Exit West
- A Novel
- By: Mohsin Hamid
- Narrated by: Mohsin Hamid
Literature at its best
Reviewed: 03-27-17
It's been a long time--too long--since a new book has held me riveted. The language, the story, the profound reality encapsulated in this relatively short book bring to life the very best of fiction.
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The Goldfinch
- By: Donna Tartt
- Narrated by: David Pittu
- Length: 32 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
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The Goldfinch is a haunted odyssey through present-day America and a drama of enthralling force and acuity. It begins with a boy. Theo Decker, a 13-year-old New Yorker, miraculously survives an accident that kills his mother. Abandoned by his father, Theo is taken in by the family of a wealthy friend. Bewildered by his strange new home on Park Avenue, disturbed by schoolmates who don't know how to talk to him, and tormented above all by his unbearable longing for his mother, he clings to one thing that reminds him of her: a small, mysteriously captivating painting that ultimately draws Theo into the underworld of art.
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Boy, am I in the minority on this one.
- By Bonny on 11-04-13
- The Goldfinch
- By: Donna Tartt
- Narrated by: David Pittu
Not Dickensian enough
Reviewed: 11-29-13
Several reviews said Tartt is a modern day Dickens. Okay, this is richly woven. Lots of detail. But in Dickens, there's a sense of redemption coming for someone--if you just stick with the story. But I couldn't stick with this. It opens with the main character at age 27/28--but the story starts with him at age 13. Halfway through the second quadrant, he's still thirteen and I'm thinking "Just how long is this kid going to be 13? Can we fast forward to 27? How are we going to get through the next 13 years if 6 months has taken up this much time in the book?"
Too many of the characters are two-dimensional--fairy-tale characters with no depth. The ones that are intriguing get whisked away too quickly. Maybe they appear later in the book, but honestly at least one of them needed to be more present in the second quandrant of this book to keep me interested enough to see what happens to the main character. I can't finish it.
For all of it's detail, the story lacks veracity. Too much information, too little consequence.
The narration is great and I will definitely look forward to other books narrated by David Pittu.
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The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
- By: Mark Haddon
- Narrated by: Jeff Woodman
- Length: 6 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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Fifteen-year-old Christopher Boone has Asperger's Syndrome, a condition similar to autism. He doesn't like to be touched or meet new people, he cannot make small talk, and he hates the colors brown and yellow. He is a math whiz with a very logical brain who loves solving puzzles that have definite answers.
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A Different View of the World
- By Alan on 05-19-04
- The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
- By: Mark Haddon
- Narrated by: Jeff Woodman
Grrr! The chapters are out of sync!
Reviewed: 10-22-13
The recording starts at Chapter 2, then skips from 3 to 5. It might be a great book and a wonderful performance....but I checked out as soon as I realized the recording was botched.
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Call the Midwife
- A Memoir of Birth, Joy, and Hard Times
- By: Jennifer Worth
- Narrated by: Nicola Barber
- Length: 12 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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At the age of 22, Jennifer Worth left her comfortable home to move into a convent and become a midwife in postwar London’s East End slums. The colorful characters she met while delivering babies all over London - from the plucky, warm-hearted nuns with whom she lived to the woman with 24 children who couldn't speak English to the prostitutes and dockers of the city’s seedier side - illuminate a fascinating time in history.
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The best book I've listened to this year
- By Richard on 06-12-13
- Call the Midwife
- A Memoir of Birth, Joy, and Hard Times
- By: Jennifer Worth
- Narrated by: Nicola Barber
Loved this book! Great historical perspective.
Reviewed: 08-27-13
This was a delightful book. Well written. It covers the time in London's East End pretty much right after WWII. It provides an amazing historical perspective on medical history, particularly that of ob/gyn at a time that was not all that long ago, but seems like another world entirely. It also provides perspective on the lives of London's poor before the economy around the docks collapsed. Oh, and before the pill. It really was another world.
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Life of Pi
- By: Yann Martel
- Narrated by: Jeff Woodman
- Length: 11 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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Pi Patel has been raised in a zoo in India. When his father decides to move the family to Canada and sell the animals to American zoos, everyone boards a Japanese cargo ship. The ship sinks, and 16-year-old Pi finds himself alone on a lifeboat with a hyena, an orangutan, a zebra with a broken leg, and a 450-pound Bengal tiger. Soon it's just Pi, the tiger, and the vast Pacific Ocean - for 227 days. Pi's fear, knowledge, and cunning keep him alive until they reach the coast of Mexico, where the tiger disappears into the jungle.
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Despite myself, I loved this book
- By Jeff on 11-09-03
- Life of Pi
- By: Yann Martel
- Narrated by: Jeff Woodman
Disappointing....
Reviewed: 08-26-13
Okay, I really liked the premise of the story and I know it was fiction. And a fiction within a fiction. The writing was excellent. The performance was excellent. It's the story itself that disappointed me.
First, a small point. That's not how exotic animals are currently trained. (Read "Kicked, Bitten, and Scratched" by Amy Sutherland.) These old-fashioned memes that are stuck in the popular culture drive me crazy. They are no help to us or the animals that share our lives (domestic or exotic).
Second, without revealing a key feature of the plot, the fiction went too far for me. It broke too many laws of the physical world. If this were a fantasy novel, that could've been dealt with. But it's not in the fantasy genre so there was one request for the suspension of disbelief too many and that was centered around a key development in the plot. So, I just felt dissappointed.
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2 people found this helpful