A History of the Present Illness
Stories
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Buy for $19.95
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
-
Narrated by:
-
Tavia Gilbert
-
By:
-
Louise Aronson
About this listen
A History of the Present Illness takes listeners into overlooked lives in the neighborhoods, hospitals, and nursing homes of San Francisco, offering a deeply humane and incisive portrait of health and illness in American today.
An elderly Chinese immigrant sacrifices his demented wife's well-being to his son's authority. A busy Latina physician's eldest daughter's need for more attention has disastrous consequences. A young veteran's injuries become a metaphor for the rest of his life. A gay doctor learns very different lessons about family from his life and his work, and a psychiatrist who advocates for the underserved may herself be crazy.
Together, these honest and compassionate stories introduce a striking new literary voice and provide a view of what it means to be a doctor and a patient unlike anything we've listened to before.
In the tradition of Oliver Sacks and Abraham Verghese, Aronson's writing is based on personal experience and addresses topics of current social relevance. Masterfully told, A History of the Present Illness explores the role of stories in medicine and creates a world pulsating with life, speaking truths about what makes us human.
©2013 Louise Aronson (P)2013 Audible, Inc.Listeners also enjoyed...
-
Elderhood
- Redefining Aging, Transforming Medicine, Reimagining Life
- By: Louise Aronson
- Narrated by: Eliza Foss
- Length: 18 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
As revelatory as Atul Gawande’s Being Mortal, physician and award-winning author Louise Aronson’s Elderhood is an essential, empathetic look at a vital but often disparaged stage of life. For more than 5,000 years, 'old' has been defined as beginning between the ages of 60 and 70. That means most people alive today will spend more years in elderhood than in childhood, and many will be elders for 40 years or more. Yet at the very moment that humans are living longer than ever before, we’ve made old age into a disease.
-
-
Well written but too long
- By Eric Troyer on 08-21-20
By: Louise Aronson
-
A History of Present Illness
- A Novel
- By: Anna DeForest
- Narrated by: Helen Laser
- Length: 3 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A young woman puts on a white coat for her first day as a student doctor. So begins this powerful debut, which follows our unnamed narrator through cadaver dissection, surgical rotation, difficult births, sudden deaths, and a budding relationship with a seminarian. In the troubled world of the hospital, where the language of blood tests and organ systems so often hides the heart of the matter, she works her way from one bed to another, from a man dying of substance use and tuberculosis, to a child in pain crisis, to a young woman, fading from confusion to aphasia to death.
-
-
Should have had a medical person perform reading
- By Ryan on 02-08-23
By: Anna DeForest
-
I Wasn't Strong Like This When I Started Out
- True Stories of Becoming a Nurse
- By: Lee Gutkind
- Narrated by: Tavia Gilbert
- Length: 8 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This collection of true narratives reflects the dynamism and diversity of nurses who provide the first vital line of patient care. Here, nurses remember their first "sticks", first births, and first deaths and reflect on what gets them though long, demanding shifts and keeps them in the profession.
-
-
A nurse must read!
- By Janet on 08-16-15
By: Lee Gutkind
-
Wolf Hall
- By: Hilary Mantel
- Narrated by: Simon Slater
- Length: 24 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the ruthless arena of King Henry VIII's court, only one man dares to gamble his life to win the king's favor and ascend to the heights of political powerEngland in the 1520s is a heartbeat from disaster. If the king dies without a male heir, the country could be destroyed by civil war. Henry VIII wants to annul his marriage of twenty years, and marry Anne Boleyn.
-
-
Divorced, beheaded, died...
- By Tim on 09-30-11
By: Hilary Mantel
-
Fellowship Point
- A Novel
- By: Alice Elliott Dark
- Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell
- Length: 19 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Celebrated children’s book author Agnes Lee is determined to secure her legacy—to complete what she knows will be the final volume of her pseudonymously written Franklin Square novels; and even more consuming, to permanently protect the peninsula of majestic coast in Maine known as Fellowship Point. To donate the land to a trust, Agnes must convince shareholders to dissolve a generations-old partnership. And one of those shareholders is her best friend, Polly.
-
-
Too far fetched at the end
- By JMNE on 08-25-22
-
Take My Hand
- By: Dolen Perkins-Valdez
- Narrated by: Lauren J. Daggett
- Length: 10 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Montgomery, Alabama, 1973. Fresh out of nursing school, Civil Townsend intends to make a difference, especially in her African American community. At the Montgomery Family Planning Clinic, she hopes to help women shape their destinies, to make their own choices for their lives and bodies.
-
-
Page Turner Based off True Events
- By LATOYA LEWIS on 06-10-22
-
Elderhood
- Redefining Aging, Transforming Medicine, Reimagining Life
- By: Louise Aronson
- Narrated by: Eliza Foss
- Length: 18 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
As revelatory as Atul Gawande’s Being Mortal, physician and award-winning author Louise Aronson’s Elderhood is an essential, empathetic look at a vital but often disparaged stage of life. For more than 5,000 years, 'old' has been defined as beginning between the ages of 60 and 70. That means most people alive today will spend more years in elderhood than in childhood, and many will be elders for 40 years or more. Yet at the very moment that humans are living longer than ever before, we’ve made old age into a disease.
-
-
Well written but too long
- By Eric Troyer on 08-21-20
By: Louise Aronson
-
A History of Present Illness
- A Novel
- By: Anna DeForest
- Narrated by: Helen Laser
- Length: 3 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A young woman puts on a white coat for her first day as a student doctor. So begins this powerful debut, which follows our unnamed narrator through cadaver dissection, surgical rotation, difficult births, sudden deaths, and a budding relationship with a seminarian. In the troubled world of the hospital, where the language of blood tests and organ systems so often hides the heart of the matter, she works her way from one bed to another, from a man dying of substance use and tuberculosis, to a child in pain crisis, to a young woman, fading from confusion to aphasia to death.
-
-
Should have had a medical person perform reading
- By Ryan on 02-08-23
By: Anna DeForest
-
I Wasn't Strong Like This When I Started Out
- True Stories of Becoming a Nurse
- By: Lee Gutkind
- Narrated by: Tavia Gilbert
- Length: 8 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This collection of true narratives reflects the dynamism and diversity of nurses who provide the first vital line of patient care. Here, nurses remember their first "sticks", first births, and first deaths and reflect on what gets them though long, demanding shifts and keeps them in the profession.
-
-
A nurse must read!
- By Janet on 08-16-15
By: Lee Gutkind
-
Wolf Hall
- By: Hilary Mantel
- Narrated by: Simon Slater
- Length: 24 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the ruthless arena of King Henry VIII's court, only one man dares to gamble his life to win the king's favor and ascend to the heights of political powerEngland in the 1520s is a heartbeat from disaster. If the king dies without a male heir, the country could be destroyed by civil war. Henry VIII wants to annul his marriage of twenty years, and marry Anne Boleyn.
-
-
Divorced, beheaded, died...
- By Tim on 09-30-11
By: Hilary Mantel
-
Fellowship Point
- A Novel
- By: Alice Elliott Dark
- Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell
- Length: 19 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Celebrated children’s book author Agnes Lee is determined to secure her legacy—to complete what she knows will be the final volume of her pseudonymously written Franklin Square novels; and even more consuming, to permanently protect the peninsula of majestic coast in Maine known as Fellowship Point. To donate the land to a trust, Agnes must convince shareholders to dissolve a generations-old partnership. And one of those shareholders is her best friend, Polly.
-
-
Too far fetched at the end
- By JMNE on 08-25-22
-
Take My Hand
- By: Dolen Perkins-Valdez
- Narrated by: Lauren J. Daggett
- Length: 10 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Montgomery, Alabama, 1973. Fresh out of nursing school, Civil Townsend intends to make a difference, especially in her African American community. At the Montgomery Family Planning Clinic, she hopes to help women shape their destinies, to make their own choices for their lives and bodies.
-
-
Page Turner Based off True Events
- By LATOYA LEWIS on 06-10-22
-
Cutting for Stone
- A Novel
- By: Abraham Verghese
- Narrated by: Sunil Malhotra
- Length: 23 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Marion and Shiva Stone are twin brothers born of a secret union between a beautiful Indian nun and a brash British surgeon. Orphaned by their mother’s death and their father’s disappearance, bound together by a preternatural connection and a shared fascination with medicine, the twins come of age as Ethiopia hovers on the brink of revolution.
-
-
An Epic Medical Novel
- By Audiophile on 07-11-09
By: Abraham Verghese
-
Happiness: A Memoir
- The Crooked Little Road to Semi-Ever After
- By: Heather Harpham
- Narrated by: Heather Harpham
- Length: 11 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Happiness begins with a charming courtship between hopelessly attracted opposites: Heather, a world-roaming California girl, and Brian, an intellectual, homebody writer, kind and slyly funny, but loath to leave his Upper West Side studio. Their magical interlude ends, full stop, when Heather becomes pregnant - Brian is sure he loves her, only he doesn't want kids. Heather returns to California to deliver their daughter alone, buoyed by family and friends.
-
-
Long & Tedious. If Only She'd Had a Good Editor.
- By Carolyn on 07-05-18
By: Heather Harpham
-
My Sister's Keeper
- A Novel
- By: Jodi Picoult
- Narrated by: Richard Poe, Julia Gibson, Barbara McCulloh, and others
- Length: 13 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Anna is not sick, but she might as well be. By age 13 she has undergone countless surgeries, transfusions, and shots so that her older sister, Kate, can somehow fight the leukemia that has plagued her since childhood. The product of preimplantation genetic diagnosis, Anna was conceived as a bone marrow match for Kate - a life and a role that she has never challenged...until now. Like most teenagers, Anna is beginning to question who she truly is.
-
-
So many emotions
- By Jordynn on 08-26-16
By: Jodi Picoult
-
Tell Me More
- Stories About the 12 Hardest Things I'm Learning to Say
- By: Kelly Corrigan
- Narrated by: Kelly Corrigan
- Length: 4 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It's a crazy idea: trying to name the phrases that make love and connection possible. But that's just what Kelly Corrigan has set out to do here. In her New York Times best-selling memoirs, Corrigan distilled our core relationships to their essences, showcasing a warm, easy storytelling style. Now, in Tell Me More, she's back with a deeply personal, unfailingly honest, and often hilarious examination of the essential phrases that turn the wheel of life.
-
-
hard but worth it
- By erssmith on 09-19-18
By: Kelly Corrigan
-
The Last Romantics
- A Novel
- By: Tara Conklin
- Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell
- Length: 12 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the spring of 1981, the young Skinner siblings - fierce Renee, dreamy Caroline, golden boy Joe, and watchful Fiona - lose their father to a heart attack and their mother to a paralyzing depression, events that thrust them into a period they will later call “the Pause”. Caught between the predictable life they once led and an uncertain future that stretches before them, the siblings navigate the dangers and resentments of the Pause to emerge fiercely loyal and deeply connected. Two decades later, the Skinners find themselves again confronted with a family crisis....
-
-
Maybe the best book I ever read
- By Plundered treasure on 02-16-19
By: Tara Conklin
-
All Fall Down
- By: Jennifer Weiner
- Narrated by: Tracee Chimo
- Length: 12 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Allison Weiss is a typical working mother, trying to balance a business, aging parents, a demanding daughter, and a marriage. But when the website she develops takes off, she finds herself challenged to the point of being completely overwhelmed. Her husband’s becoming distant, her daughter’s acting spoiled, her father is dealing with early Alzheimer’s, and her mother’s barely dealing at all.
-
-
Annoying
- By Jessica on 06-17-15
By: Jennifer Weiner
-
A Series of Catastrophes and Miracles
- A True Story of Love, Science, and Cancer
- By: Mary Elizabeth Williams
- Narrated by: Mary Elizabeth Williams
- Length: 9 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
After being diagnosed in her early forties with metastatic melanoma - a "rapidly fatal" form of cancer - journalist and mother of two Mary Elizabeth Williams finds herself in a race against the clock. She takes a once-in-a-lifetime chance and joins a clinical trial for immunotherapy, a revolutionary drug regimen that trains the body to vanquish malignant cells. Astonishingly, her cancer disappears entirely in just a few weeks. But at the same time, her best friend embarks on a cancer journey of her own - with very different results.
-
-
Believe!
- By Mary on 08-22-20
-
Oxygen
- A Novel
- By: Carol Wiley Cassella
- Narrated by: Jennifer Ikeda
- Length: 11 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Carol Cassella, a freelance medical writer and a practicing anesthesiologist, grounds her haunting debut novel Oxygen in the life-or-death scenarios of the modern medical field. Marie Heaton's successful anesthesiology practice is derailed when a child dies under the mask. Faced with a major lawsuit, she must turn to a former lover for moral support.
-
-
Excellent Read
- By Pamela Harvey on 11-24-09
-
Second Nature
- A Love Story
- By: Jacquelyn Mitchard
- Narrated by: Rebecca Lowman
- Length: 13 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Sicily Coyne was just thirteen when her father was killed in a school fire that left her face disfigured. Twelve years later, a young surgeon, Eliza Cappadora, offers hope in the form of a revolutionary new surgery that may give Sicily back the grace and function she lost. Raised by a dynamic, tenacious aunt who taught her to lead a normal life, and engaged to a wonderful man who knew her long before the accident, Sicily rejects the offer: She knows who she is, and so do the people who love her.
-
-
Fascinating read
- By Brendolynne on 06-03-12
-
Liberalism and Its Discontents
- By: Francis Fukuyama
- Narrated by: Christopher Ragland
- Length: 5 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It's no secret that liberalism didn't always live up to its own ideals. In America, many people were denied equality before the law. Who counted as full human beings worthy of universal rights was contested for centuries, and only recently has this circle expanded to include women, African Americans, LGBTQ+ people, and others. Conservatives complain that liberalism empties the common life of meaning. As Francis Fukuyama shows in Liberalism and Its Discontents, the principles of liberalism have also, in recent decades, been pushed to new extremes by both the right and the left.
-
-
For those who haven’t given up yet.
- By DMax on 09-29-22
By: Francis Fukuyama
-
Something for the Pain
- Compassion and Burnout in the ER
- By: Paul Austin
- Narrated by: Carl Randolph
- Length: 7 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this eye-opening account of life in the ER, Paul Austin recalls how the daily grind of long, erratic shifts and endless hordes of patients with sad stories sent him down a path of bitterness and cynicism. Gritty, powerful, and ultimately redemptive, Something for the Pain is a revealing glimpse into the fragility of compassion and sanity in the industrial setting of today’s hospitals.
-
-
The narration is horrid.
- By Randa Shannon on 10-09-17
By: Paul Austin
-
Medicine in Translation
- Journeys with My Patients
- By: Danielle Ofri
- Narrated by: Beth Richmond
- Length: 9 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
For two decades, Dr. Danielle Ofri has cared for patients at Bellevue, the oldest public hospital in the country and a crossroads for the world's cultures. In Medicine in Translation she introduces us, in vivid, moving portraits, to her patients, who have braved language barriers, religious and racial divides, and the emotional and practical difficulties of exile in order to access quality health care.
-
-
Enjoyed it all the way through, but...
- By Neight on 03-27-15
By: Danielle Ofri
Related to this topic
-
The Conspiracy Club
- By: Jonathan Kellerman
- Narrated by: Rob Kahn
- Length: 9 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When his brief, passionate romance with nurse Jocelyn Banks is cut short by her kidnapping and brutal murder, Dr. Jeremy Carrier is left emotionally devastated, haunted by his lover's grisly demise and warily eyed by police still seeking a prime suspect in the unsolved slaying. To escape the pain, he buries himself in his work as staff psychologist at City Central Hospital, only to be drawn deeper into a waking nightmare when more women turn up murdered in the same gruesome fashion as Jocelyn Banks.
-
-
Disappointin Departure
- By Tom on 12-03-03
-
The Blue Cotton Gown
- A Midwife’s Memoir
- By: Patricia Harman
- Narrated by: Abby Craden
- Length: 9 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Heather is pale and thin, seventeen and pregnant with twins when Patricia Harman begins to care for her. Over the course of the next five seasons Patsy will see Heather through the loss of both babies and their father. She will also care for her longtime patient Nila, pregnant for the eighth time and trying to make a new life without her abusive husband. And Patsy will try to find some comfort to offer Holly, whose teenage daughter struggles with bulimia. She will help Rebba learn to find pleasure in her body and help Kaz transition into a new body.
-
-
Hope, Heartbreak, Compassion
- By Susie on 10-16-13
By: Patricia Harman
-
Ask Me Why I Hurt
- The Kids Nobody Wants and the Doctor Who Heals Them
- By: Randy Christensen M.D., Rene Denfeld
- Narrated by: Johnny Heller
- Length: 8 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The unforgettable inspiring memoir of one extraordinary doctor who is saving lives in a most unconventional way, Ask Me Why I Hurt is the touching and revealing first-person account of the remarkable work of Dr. Randy Christensen. Trained as a pediatrician, he works not in a typical hospital setting but, rather, in a 38-foot Winnebago that has been refitted as a doctor's office on wheels. His patients are the city's homeless adolescents and children.
-
-
The reality of our streets
- By SusanInTheMidwest on 08-26-17
By: Randy Christensen M.D., and others
-
Don't Leave Me This Way
- Or When I Get Back on My Feet You'll Be Sorry
- By: Julia Fox Garrison
- Narrated by: Joyce Bean
- Length: 8 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Julia Fox Garrison refused to listen to the professionals she called Dr. Jerk and Dr. Panic, who - after she suffered a massive, debilitating stroke at age thirty-seven - told her she’d probably die, or to Nurse Doom, who ignored her emergency call button. Instead she heeded the advice of kind, gifted Dr. Neuro, who promised her he would “treat your mind as well as your body.” Julia figured if she could somehow manage to get herself into a wheelchair, at least she’d always find parking. But after many, many months of hospitalization and rehab, Julia not only got into a wheelchair, but she got back out.
-
-
Heroic Story
- By Pamela Harvey on 02-29-12
-
The Promise of Stardust
- A Novel
- By: Priscille Sibley
- Narrated by: George Newbern
- Length: 10 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When a tragic accident leaves Elle brain-dead, Matt is devastated. He knows his wife feared only one thing - a slow death. Just before Matt agrees to remove Elle from life support, the doctors discover that she is pregnant. Matt knows how much this child would have meant to Elle. Linney, Matt's mother, believes her son is blind with denial. She loves Elle, too, and insists that Elle would never want to be kept alive by artificial means, no matter what the situation. Divided by the love they share, driven by principle, Matt and Linney fight for what each believes is right.
-
-
Loved this Story. I may listen to it again!
- By Susan on 01-05-14
By: Priscille Sibley
-
One True Thing
- By: Anna Quindlen
- Narrated by: Christina Moore
- Length: 9 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A young woman sits in jail, accused of the mercy killing of her dying mother. She didn't do it, but she thinks she knows who did. In the last months of her life, Ellen Gulden's mother revealed startling secrets that challenged everything Ellen believed about her family. Now, in jail, Ellen believes those secrets will tell her who had the courage to end her mother's suffering.
-
-
Quindlen's writing skills shine in One True Thing.
- By Bonny on 08-26-13
By: Anna Quindlen
-
The Conspiracy Club
- By: Jonathan Kellerman
- Narrated by: Rob Kahn
- Length: 9 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When his brief, passionate romance with nurse Jocelyn Banks is cut short by her kidnapping and brutal murder, Dr. Jeremy Carrier is left emotionally devastated, haunted by his lover's grisly demise and warily eyed by police still seeking a prime suspect in the unsolved slaying. To escape the pain, he buries himself in his work as staff psychologist at City Central Hospital, only to be drawn deeper into a waking nightmare when more women turn up murdered in the same gruesome fashion as Jocelyn Banks.
-
-
Disappointin Departure
- By Tom on 12-03-03
-
The Blue Cotton Gown
- A Midwife’s Memoir
- By: Patricia Harman
- Narrated by: Abby Craden
- Length: 9 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Heather is pale and thin, seventeen and pregnant with twins when Patricia Harman begins to care for her. Over the course of the next five seasons Patsy will see Heather through the loss of both babies and their father. She will also care for her longtime patient Nila, pregnant for the eighth time and trying to make a new life without her abusive husband. And Patsy will try to find some comfort to offer Holly, whose teenage daughter struggles with bulimia. She will help Rebba learn to find pleasure in her body and help Kaz transition into a new body.
-
-
Hope, Heartbreak, Compassion
- By Susie on 10-16-13
By: Patricia Harman
-
Ask Me Why I Hurt
- The Kids Nobody Wants and the Doctor Who Heals Them
- By: Randy Christensen M.D., Rene Denfeld
- Narrated by: Johnny Heller
- Length: 8 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The unforgettable inspiring memoir of one extraordinary doctor who is saving lives in a most unconventional way, Ask Me Why I Hurt is the touching and revealing first-person account of the remarkable work of Dr. Randy Christensen. Trained as a pediatrician, he works not in a typical hospital setting but, rather, in a 38-foot Winnebago that has been refitted as a doctor's office on wheels. His patients are the city's homeless adolescents and children.
-
-
The reality of our streets
- By SusanInTheMidwest on 08-26-17
By: Randy Christensen M.D., and others
-
Don't Leave Me This Way
- Or When I Get Back on My Feet You'll Be Sorry
- By: Julia Fox Garrison
- Narrated by: Joyce Bean
- Length: 8 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Julia Fox Garrison refused to listen to the professionals she called Dr. Jerk and Dr. Panic, who - after she suffered a massive, debilitating stroke at age thirty-seven - told her she’d probably die, or to Nurse Doom, who ignored her emergency call button. Instead she heeded the advice of kind, gifted Dr. Neuro, who promised her he would “treat your mind as well as your body.” Julia figured if she could somehow manage to get herself into a wheelchair, at least she’d always find parking. But after many, many months of hospitalization and rehab, Julia not only got into a wheelchair, but she got back out.
-
-
Heroic Story
- By Pamela Harvey on 02-29-12
-
The Promise of Stardust
- A Novel
- By: Priscille Sibley
- Narrated by: George Newbern
- Length: 10 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When a tragic accident leaves Elle brain-dead, Matt is devastated. He knows his wife feared only one thing - a slow death. Just before Matt agrees to remove Elle from life support, the doctors discover that she is pregnant. Matt knows how much this child would have meant to Elle. Linney, Matt's mother, believes her son is blind with denial. She loves Elle, too, and insists that Elle would never want to be kept alive by artificial means, no matter what the situation. Divided by the love they share, driven by principle, Matt and Linney fight for what each believes is right.
-
-
Loved this Story. I may listen to it again!
- By Susan on 01-05-14
By: Priscille Sibley
-
One True Thing
- By: Anna Quindlen
- Narrated by: Christina Moore
- Length: 9 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A young woman sits in jail, accused of the mercy killing of her dying mother. She didn't do it, but she thinks she knows who did. In the last months of her life, Ellen Gulden's mother revealed startling secrets that challenged everything Ellen believed about her family. Now, in jail, Ellen believes those secrets will tell her who had the courage to end her mother's suffering.
-
-
Quindlen's writing skills shine in One True Thing.
- By Bonny on 08-26-13
By: Anna Quindlen
-
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
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Children Playing Before a Statue of Hercules is a collection of short stories, some classic, others impending, selected and introduced by David Sedaris.
-
-
Great stories but only 5 of 17 are included
- By Terri Kirk on 07-13-12
-
The Portable Veblen
- By: Elizabeth Mckenzie
- Narrated by: Julia Gibson
- Length: 12 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
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.
-
-
Not what it was cracked up to be
- By Linda on 02-03-16
-
My Glory Was I Had Such Friends
- A Memoir
- By: Amy Silverstein
- Narrated by: Erin Moon
- Length: 12 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Nearly 26 years after receiving her first heart transplant, Amy Silverstein's donor heart plummeted into failure. If she wanted to live, she had to take on the grueling quest for a new heart - immediately. A shot at survival meant uprooting her life and moving across the country to California. When her friends heard of her plans, there was only one reaction: "I'm there." Nine remarkable women - Joy, Jill, Leja, Jody, Lauren, Robin, Valerie, Ann, and Jane - put demanding jobs and pressing family obligations on hold to fly across the country and be by Amy's side.
-
-
Great listen!
- By Natalie on 05-13-23
By: Amy Silverstein
-
Expecting Adam
- A True Story of Birth, Rebirth, and Everyday Magic
- By: Martha Beck
- Narrated by: Joyce Bean
- Length: 12 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From the moment Martha and her husband, John, conceived their second child, all hell broke loose. They were a couple obsessed with success. After years of matching IQs and test scores with less driven peers, they had two Harvard degrees apiece and were gunning for more. But the dream had begun to disintegrate. Then, when their unborn son, Adam, was diagnosed with Down syndrome, doctors, advisers, and friends in the Harvard community warned them not to keep the baby.
-
-
True Life Fairy Tale
- By Desarae on 11-27-13
By: Martha Beck
-
Ghostbelly
- By: Elizabeth Heineman
- Narrated by: Coleen Marlo
- Length: 7 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Ghostbelly is Elizabeth Heineman’s personal account of a home birth that goes tragically wrong—ending in a stillbirth—and the harrowing process of grief and questioning that follows. It’s also Heineman’s unexpected tale of the loss of a newborn: before burial, she brings the baby home for overnight stays.
-
-
Healing
- By ngsquared on 04-17-23
-
In the Country
- Stories
- By: Mia Alvar
- Narrated by: Nancy Wu, Don Castro
- Length: 13 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
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.
-
-
My introduction to Filipino literature and culture
- By Amazon Customer on 03-28-16
By: Mia Alvar
-
Divided Minds
- Twin Sisters and Their Journey Through Schizophrenia
- By: Pamela Spiro Wagner, Carolyn S. Spiro MD
- Narrated by: Kimberly Farr, Amanda Carlin
- Length: 11 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Divided Minds is a dual memoir of identical twins, one of whom faces a life sentence of schizophrenia and the other who becomes a psychiatrist after entering the spotlight that had for so long been focused on her sister.
-
-
intense!
- By Snow Dunn on 09-12-19
By: Pamela Spiro Wagner, and others
-
A Danger to Herself and Others
- By: Alyssa Sheinmel
- Narrated by: Devon Sorvari
- Length: 8 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Hannah knows there's been a mistake. She doesn't need to be institutionalized. What happened to her roommate at that summer program was an accident. As soon as the doctor and judge figure out that she isn't a danger to herself or others, she can go home to start her senior year. Then Lucy arrives. Lucy has her own baggage, and she's the perfect project to keep Hannah's focus off all she is missing at home. But Lucy may be the one person who can get Hannah to confront the secrets she's avoiding - and the dangerous games that landed her in confinement in the first place.
-
-
Total disappointment
- By Chris McLaughlin on 01-04-20
By: Alyssa Sheinmel
-
True Biz
- A Novel
- By: Sara Novic
- Narrated by: Lisa Flanagan, Kaleo Griffith
- Length: 10 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
True biz? The students at the River Valley School for the Deaf just want to hook up, pass their history finals, and have politicians, doctors, and their parents stop telling them what to do with their bodies. This revelatory novel plunges listeners into the halls of a residential school for the deaf, where they’ll meet Charlie, a rebellious transfer student who’s never met another deaf person before; Austin, the school’s golden boy, whose world is rocked when his baby sister is born hearing; and February, the hearing headmistress.
-
-
A good story with added features both intriguing and informational
- By A Signing Mom on 05-15-22
By: Sara Novic
-
Suddenly
- By: Barbara Delinsky
- Narrated by: Carol Monda
- Length: 15 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the idyllic small town of Tucker, Vermont, life flows at a rhythmic pace for pediatrician Paige Pfeiffer. But when Mara O'Neill, her best friend and medical partner, inexplicably kills herself, Paige's comfortable world is suddenly shattered. Temporarily caring for Mara's newly adopted baby daughter while she comes to grips with her grief, Paige clings to the hope that, in time, her orderly life will return.
-
-
Parent guide! (not romance)
- By christine on 10-10-11
By: Barbara Delinsky
-
Last Night in the OR
- A Transplant Surgeon's Odyssey
- By: Bud Shaw
- Narrated by: Jonathan Yen
- Length: 8 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The 1980s marked a revolution in the field of organ transplants, and Bud Shaw, MD, who studied under Tom Starzl in Pittsburgh, was on the front lines. Now retired from active practice, Dr. Shaw relays gripping moments of anguish and elation, frustration and reward, despair and hope in his struggle to save patients. He reveals harshly intimate moments of his medical career.
-
-
Expect alot of bad language!
- By Lynn L. on 08-10-16
By: Bud Shaw
-
Millard Salter's Last Day
- By: Jacob M. Appel
- Narrated by: Joe Barrett
- Length: 7 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In an effort to delay the frailty and isolation that comes with old age, psychiatrist Millard Salter decides to kill himself by the end of the day - but first he has to tie up some loose ends. These include a tête-à-tête with his youngest son, Lysander, who at 43 has yet to hold down a paying job; an unscheduled rendezvous with his first wife, Carol, whom he hasn't seen in 27 years; and a brief visit to the grave of his second wife, Isabelle. Complicating this plan, though, is Delilah, the widow with whom he has fallen in love in the past few months.
-
-
great storytelling....
- By Anna Marie Bair on 01-18-20
By: Jacob M. Appel