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A Kind of Mirraculas Paradise
- A True Story About Schizophrenia
- Narrated by: Sandy Allen, Pete Simonelli
- Length: 7 hrs and 19 mins
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Publisher's summary
“Compelling…. A bracing work of art and a loving tribute” (Los Angeles Times), this propulsive, stunning book illuminates the experience of living with schizophrenia like never before.
Sandra Allen did not know their uncle Bob very well. As a child, Sandy had been told Bob was “crazy”, that he had spent time in mental hospitals while growing up in Berkeley in the '60s and '70s. But Bob had lived a hermetic life in a remote part of California for longer than Sandy had been alive, and what little Sandy knew of him came from rare family reunions or odd, infrequent phone calls. Then in 2009, Bob mailed Sandy his autobiography. Typewritten in all caps, a stream of error-riddled sentences more than 60 single-spaced pages, the often-incomprehensible manuscript proclaimed to be a “true story” about being “labeled a psychotic paranoid schizophrenic", and arrived with a plea to help him get his story out to the world.
“Searing” (O, The Oprah Magazine), “enthralling” (Star-Tribune, Minneapolis), and “a marvel” (Esquire), A Kind of Mirraculas Paradise shows how Sandy translated Bob’s autobiography, artfully creating a gripping coming-of-age story while sticking faithfully to the facts as he shared them. Sandy also shares background information about their family, the culturally explosive time and place of their uncle’s formative years, and the vitally important questions surrounding schizophrenia and mental healthcare in America more broadly. The result is a heartbreaking and sometimes hilarious portrait of a young man striving for stability in his life as well as his mind, and an utterly unique lens into an experience that, to most people, remains unimaginable.
“Thrilling.... Gorgeous...a watershed in empathetic adaptation of ‘outsider’ autobiography” (The New Republic), A Kind of Mirraculas Paradise is a dazzlingly, daringly written book that’s poised to change conversations about schizophrenia and mental illness overall.
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- Narrated by: Paul Boehmer
- Length: 13 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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When Edward M. Hallowell was 11, a voice out of nowhere told him he should become a psychiatrist. A mental health professional of the time would have called this psychosis. But young Edward (Ned) took it in stride, despite not quite knowing what "psychiatrist" meant. With a psychotic father, an alcoholic mother, an abusive stepfather, and two so-called learning disabilities of his own, Ned was accustomed to unpredictable behaviour from those around him and to a mind he felt he couldn't always control.
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Love and connection permeates through this book!
- By Steve Steinmetz on 06-29-18
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The Pursuit of Happyness (Abridged)
- By: Chris Gardner
- Narrated by: Andre Blake
- Length: 5 hrs and 42 mins
- Abridged
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At the age of 20, Chris Gardner arrived in San Francisco to pursue a promising career in medicine. However, he surprised everyone and himself by setting his sights on the competitive world of high finance. Yet no sooner had he landed an entry-level position at a prestigious firm, Gardner found himself caught in a web of incredibly challenging circumstances that left him part of the city's working homeless with his toddler son.
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Very Good Story!
- By Lito Da Critic on 06-02-06
By: Chris Gardner
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Thank You for Your Service
- By: David Finkel
- Narrated by: Arthur Bishop
- Length: 7 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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No journalist has reckoned with the psychology of war as intimately as David Finkel. In The Good Soldiers, his bestselling account from the front lines of Baghdad, Finkel shadowed the men of the 2-16 Infantry Battalion as they carried out the infamous surge, a grueling fifteen-month tour that changed all of them forever. Now Finkel has followed many of those same men as they’ve returned home and struggled to reintegrate - both into their family lives and into American society at large.
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Wrenching
- By Scott on 01-03-14
By: David Finkel
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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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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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A Girl's Guide to Missiles
- Growing Up in America's Secret Desert
- By: Karen Piper
- Narrated by: Rebecca Lowman
- Length: 10 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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The China Lake missile range is located in a huge stretch of the Mojave Desert, about the size of the state of Delaware. It was created during the Second World War, and has always been shrouded in secrecy. But people who make missiles and other weapons are regular working people, with domestic routines and everyday dilemmas, and four of them were Karen Piper's parents, her sister, and - when she needed summer jobs - herself.
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DNF on chapter 10 when Piper is 10
- By NMwritergal on 08-15-18
By: Karen Piper
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Liner Notes
- On Parents & Children, Exes & Excess, Death & Decay, & a Few of My Other Favorite Things
- By: Loudon Wainwright III
- Narrated by: Loudon Wainwright III
- Length: 10 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
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A memoir by the influential Grammy Award-winning singer and actor - son of journalist Loudon Wainwright, former husband of Kate McGarrigle and Suzzy Roche, and father of Rufus Wainwright, Martha Wainwright, Lucy Wainwright Roche, and Lexie Kelly Wainwright - a captivating meditation on relationships and creativity from the patriarch of one of America's great musical families. With a career spanning more than four decades, Loudon Wainwright III has established himself as one of the most enduring singer-songwriters who emerged from the late '60s.
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Best ever book for listening
- By Jeff Bernhardt on 10-29-17
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After the Eclipse
- A Mother's Murder, a Daughter's Search
- By: Sarah Perry
- Narrated by: Emily Woo Zeller
- Length: 13 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
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A fierce memoir of a mother's murder, a daughter's coming-of-age in the wake of immense loss, and her ultimate mission to know the woman who gave her life.
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True crime memoir
- By Julie on 11-03-17
By: Sarah Perry
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An Abundance of Katherines
- By: John Green
- Narrated by: Jeff Woodman
- Length: 6 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
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When it comes to relationships, Colin Singleton’s type is girls named Katherine. And when it comes to girls named Katherine, Colin is always getting dumped. Nineteen times, to be exact. On a road trip miles from home, this anagram-happy, washed-up child prodigy has $10,000 in his pocket, a bloodthirsty feral hog on his trail, and an overweight, Judge Judy-loving best friend riding shotgun - but no Katherines.
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struggled to finish listening
- By Daniel on 03-11-20
By: John Green
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Disgruntled
- By: Asali Solomon
- Narrated by: Bahni Turpin
- Length: 9 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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Kenya Curtis is only eight years old, but she knows that she's different, even if she can't put her finger on how or why. It's not because she's black - most of the other students in the fourth-grade class at her West Philadelphia elementary school are, too. Maybe it's because she calls her father - a housepainter-slash-philosopher - "Baba" or because her parents' friends gather to pour out libations "from the Creator, for the Martyrs" and discuss "the community".
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Loved It!!!
- By ayodele higgs on 05-20-15
By: Asali Solomon
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I'll Be There
- By: Holly Goldberg Sloan
- Narrated by: Laura Jennings
- Length: 9 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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Emily Bell believes in destiny. To her, being forced to sing a solo in the church choir - despite her average voice - is fate: because it's while she's singing that she first sees Sam. At first sight they are connected. Sam Border wishes he could escape, but there's nowhere for him to run. He and his little brother, Riddle, have spent their entire lives constantly uprooted by their unstable father. As Sam and Riddle are welcomed into the Bells' lives, they witness the warmth and protection of a family for the first time.
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Needs to be a film!
- By TreasureHunter on 06-25-16
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If It's Not One Thing, It's Your Mother
- By: Julia Sweeney
- Narrated by: Julia Sweeney
- Length: 6 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
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Since her time on Saturday Night Live, where she created the infamous androgynous character "Pat", Julia Sweeney has gone on to establish herself as a witty, captivating performer of one-woman shows, like God Said Ha!, In the Family Way, and Letting Go of God. She gave a TED talk sharing how she explained the birds and the bees to her eight-year-old daughter, Mulan, which ignited an incredible response. Now, when it comes to talking about motherhood, people want to hear what Julia has to say.
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I Love Julia Sweeney
- By Lisa on 04-05-13
By: Julia Sweeney
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The Death of Cool
- From Teenage Rebellion to the Hangover of Adulthood
- By: Gavin McInnes
- Narrated by: Gavin McInnes
- Length: 7 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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This is his story, or, rather, stories - lots of them, and all gut-punchingly hilarious, from that first far reach into a girl's tight jeans to turning forty with a cataclysmic party. In between you’ll hear about acid trips, threesomes, Nazi skinheads, his band Anal Chinook (Inuit for “warm wind”), Martians in northern Canada, throwing pedophiles in jail, dinner with the Clash, what happens when you crash Bill Maher's show wasted, and the true story of Vice magazine.
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if you don't buy this book, the terrorists win
- By Kelsey Gholi on 04-03-17
By: Gavin McInnes
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Digging Up Mother
- A Love Story
- By: Johnny Depp - foreword, Doug Stanhope
- Narrated by: Doug Stanhope and Friends
- Length: 12 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
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Doug Stanhope is one of the most critically acclaimed and stridently unrepentant comedians of his generation. What will surprise some is that he owes so much of his dark and sometimes uncomfortably honest sense of humor to his mother, Bonnie.
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Not my thing.
- By J. Harral on 01-27-18
By: Johnny Depp - foreword, and others
What listeners say about A Kind of Mirraculas Paradise
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- matt h
- 03-01-19
Beautiful, Empathetic & Fascinating
i loved this book! a tremendous first hand account of mental illness that should be required reading for everyone.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Joe
- 05-21-23
What an amazing gift to the world, thank you Bob and Sandra
I have been riveted and just finished same day I got the audiobook.
Such a wonderfully honest expose and the realness of it all kept me loving riding along to the really eloquently presented and developed expose of this one man’s life and the mental health struggles he and the human race faces.
I’m not typically a biography consumer but hearing Sandra speak of how she found the trees on This American Life this morning I was like “those, those are my people”.
Despite the somewhat intense subject matter it was really eye opening and fun throughout. I for one really appreciated a lot of “Bob’s” succinct prose about his experiences and love how Sandra would jump in with the data and recognition of where the world was at while it was all happening.
Great job, Sandra, and thank you for that journey today. It’s one of those rare gems that since it is so varied but at the same time real I just feel like I know a little bit more what a beautiful, scary, wonderful, and tragic thing it is to be human.
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- jash
- 02-26-21
Great!
I really loved the life story about her uncle and his schizophrenia as I have a relative with the same mental illness I think that the author did a great job putting his writing and her riding together to explain what may have happened or not have happened according to his views it was interesting and fast reading
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- Jill Hogan
- 10-30-23
Engaging
Thank you for telling such a humanistic story about schizophrenia. Told in the words of the man who experienced it. What a great way to honour his life.
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- Armando
- 02-25-18
Perspective
Instead of looking for what makes someone wrong or different, we should appreciate alternative perspectives for challenging our own and forcing considerations which may not occur in a bleak, one thought society. This book explores this concept and is important in narrating a story which often goes untold.
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3 people found this helpful
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- Jessica L
- 05-24-18
Beautifully done
Wonderfully insightful book. Well narrated, kept my attention. Gave a very loving perspective into a family and a person dealing with schizophrenia.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Marissa
- 02-13-18
Intriguing
I listen to audible at my dest at work while I process referrals for people that can be similar to Bob. It was interesting to finally see into other people I hear about everyday and being able to look deeper while reading this. I appreciated this book and am going to send it to a friend who may have an inkling to who Wes couldve been.
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- E
- 08-25-19
Unique insight into schizophrenia
I absolutely loved this book. The added commentary and context, the dual narrators, the unique voice of Bob and his view of his world.. all come together in a portrait of a man whose life needed to be written.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Shoaib Fakhri
- 07-18-22
Schizophrenia
Trying to think of words to describe this book, it gives you a definite experience on what someone with mental health problems are going through.
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- E. Bass
- 09-21-23
An important story
So glad Bob’s story is out in the world. The author portrayed him in all his human fullness. Bob was a beautiful spirit who learned what his gifts and limitations and needs were. He lived life on his terms, and this story provides a valuable look into the mind of a schizophrenic.
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