-
Ablutions
- Narrated by: Patrick Dewitt
- Length: 4 hrs and 31 mins
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 $14.95
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
Publisher's summary
In a famous but declining Hollywood bar works A Barman. Morbidly amused by the decadent decay of his surroundings, he watches the patrons fall into their nightly oblivion, making notes for his novel. In the hope of uncovering their secrets and motives, he establishes tentative friendships with the cast of variously pathological regulars .But as his tenure at the bar continues, he begins to serve himself more often than his customers, and the moments he lives outside the bar become more and more painful: he loses his wife, his way, himself. Trapped by his habits and his loneliness, he realizes he will not survive if he doesn't break free. And so he hatches a terrible, necessary plan of escape and his only chance for redemption.
Step into Ablutions and step behind the bar, below rock bottom, and beyond the everyday take on storytelling for a brilliant, new twist on the classic tale of addiction and its consequences.
Listeners also enjoyed...
-
The Librarianist
- A Novel
- By: Patrick deWitt
- Narrated by: Jim Meskimen
- Length: 10 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Bob Comet is a retired librarian passing his solitary days surrounded by books and small comforts in a mint-colored house in Portland, Oregon. One morning on his daily walk he encounters a confused elderly woman lost in a market and returns her to the senior center that is her home. Hoping to fill the void he’s known since retiring, he begins volunteering at the center. Here, as a community of strange peers gathers around Bob, and following a happenstance brush with a painful complication from his past, the events of his life and the details of his character are revealed.
-
-
An entertaining audio
- By Barbara S on 07-09-23
By: Patrick deWitt
-
The Sisters Brothers
- A Novel
- By: Patrick deWitt
- Narrated by: John Pruden
- Length: 7 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Hermann Kermit Warm is going to die. The enigmatic and powerful man known only as the Commodore has ordered it, and his henchmen, Eli and Charlie Sisters, will make sure of it. Though Eli doesn't share his brother's appetite for whiskey and killing, he's never known anything else. But their prey isn't an easy mark, and on the road from Oregon City to Warm's gold-mining claim outside Sacramento, Eli begins to question what he does for a living - and whom he does it for. With The Sisters Brothers, Patrick deWitt pays homage to the classic Western....
-
-
The Cruelty To Animals is Hard to Take
- By Leslie on 07-22-12
By: Patrick deWitt
-
Ghost Stories: Stephen Fry's Definitive Collection
- By: Stephen Fry, Washington Irving, M.R. James, and others
- Narrated by: Stephen Fry
- Length: 8 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
As the days grow shorter and the temperature drops, Halloween approaches. Come, brave listener, pull up a chair, and spend some time with master storyteller Stephen Fry as he tells us some of his favourite ghost stories of all time, in truly terrifying spatial audio. From the headless horseman of Sleepy Hollow to the tortured spirits of M.R. James, from Edgar Allan Poe’s terrifying tale of a doppelganger to Charlotte Riddell’s Open Door that should definitely stay shut, join Stephen as he tells you some truly terrifying tales.
-
-
Wonderful narration. Mediocre stories.
- By Michael Fuchs on 11-07-23
By: Stephen Fry, and others
-
On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous
- A Novel
- By: Ocean Vuong
- Narrated by: Ocean Vuong
- Length: 7 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Poet Ocean Vuong’s debut novel is a shattering portrait of a family, a first love, and the redemptive power of storytelling. On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous is a letter from a son to a mother who cannot read. Written when the speaker, Little Dog, is in his late 20s, the letter unearths a family’s history that began before he was born - a history whose epicenter is rooted in Vietnam - and serves as a doorway into parts of his life his mother has never known, all of it leading to an unforgettable revelation.
-
-
Beautifully written, but painful.
- By NB on 06-10-19
By: Ocean Vuong
-
Lincoln in the Bardo
- A Novel
- By: George Saunders
- Narrated by: Nick Offerman, David Sedaris, George Saunders, and others
- Length: 7 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
February 1862. The Civil War is less than one year old. The fighting has begun in earnest, and the nation has begun to realize it is in for a long, bloody struggle. Meanwhile, President Lincoln’s beloved eleven-year-old son, Willie, lies upstairs in the White House, gravely ill. In a matter of days, despite predictions of a recovery, Willie dies and is laid to rest in a Georgetown cemetery. “My poor boy, he was too good for this earth,” the president says at the time. “God has called him home.”
-
-
"Where might God stand?"
- By Mel on 02-17-17
By: George Saunders
-
How High We Go in the Dark
- A Novel
- By: Sequoia Nagamatsu
- Narrated by: Julia Whelan, Brian Nishii, Keisuke Hoashi, and others
- Length: 9 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 2030, a grieving archeologist arrives in the Arctic Circle to continue the work of his recently deceased daughter at the Batagaika Crater, where researchers are studying long-buried secrets now revealed in melting permafrost, including the perfectly preserved remains of a girl who appears to have died of an ancient virus. Once unleashed, the Arctic plague will reshape life on Earth for generations to come, quickly traversing the globe, forcing humanity to devise a myriad of moving and inventive ways to embrace possibility in the face of tragedy.
-
-
Should come with a sadness warning
- By KJH on 03-16-22
-
The Librarianist
- A Novel
- By: Patrick deWitt
- Narrated by: Jim Meskimen
- Length: 10 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Bob Comet is a retired librarian passing his solitary days surrounded by books and small comforts in a mint-colored house in Portland, Oregon. One morning on his daily walk he encounters a confused elderly woman lost in a market and returns her to the senior center that is her home. Hoping to fill the void he’s known since retiring, he begins volunteering at the center. Here, as a community of strange peers gathers around Bob, and following a happenstance brush with a painful complication from his past, the events of his life and the details of his character are revealed.
-
-
An entertaining audio
- By Barbara S on 07-09-23
By: Patrick deWitt
-
The Sisters Brothers
- A Novel
- By: Patrick deWitt
- Narrated by: John Pruden
- Length: 7 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Hermann Kermit Warm is going to die. The enigmatic and powerful man known only as the Commodore has ordered it, and his henchmen, Eli and Charlie Sisters, will make sure of it. Though Eli doesn't share his brother's appetite for whiskey and killing, he's never known anything else. But their prey isn't an easy mark, and on the road from Oregon City to Warm's gold-mining claim outside Sacramento, Eli begins to question what he does for a living - and whom he does it for. With The Sisters Brothers, Patrick deWitt pays homage to the classic Western....
-
-
The Cruelty To Animals is Hard to Take
- By Leslie on 07-22-12
By: Patrick deWitt
-
Ghost Stories: Stephen Fry's Definitive Collection
- By: Stephen Fry, Washington Irving, M.R. James, and others
- Narrated by: Stephen Fry
- Length: 8 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
As the days grow shorter and the temperature drops, Halloween approaches. Come, brave listener, pull up a chair, and spend some time with master storyteller Stephen Fry as he tells us some of his favourite ghost stories of all time, in truly terrifying spatial audio. From the headless horseman of Sleepy Hollow to the tortured spirits of M.R. James, from Edgar Allan Poe’s terrifying tale of a doppelganger to Charlotte Riddell’s Open Door that should definitely stay shut, join Stephen as he tells you some truly terrifying tales.
-
-
Wonderful narration. Mediocre stories.
- By Michael Fuchs on 11-07-23
By: Stephen Fry, and others
-
On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous
- A Novel
- By: Ocean Vuong
- Narrated by: Ocean Vuong
- Length: 7 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Poet Ocean Vuong’s debut novel is a shattering portrait of a family, a first love, and the redemptive power of storytelling. On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous is a letter from a son to a mother who cannot read. Written when the speaker, Little Dog, is in his late 20s, the letter unearths a family’s history that began before he was born - a history whose epicenter is rooted in Vietnam - and serves as a doorway into parts of his life his mother has never known, all of it leading to an unforgettable revelation.
-
-
Beautifully written, but painful.
- By NB on 06-10-19
By: Ocean Vuong
-
Lincoln in the Bardo
- A Novel
- By: George Saunders
- Narrated by: Nick Offerman, David Sedaris, George Saunders, and others
- Length: 7 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
February 1862. The Civil War is less than one year old. The fighting has begun in earnest, and the nation has begun to realize it is in for a long, bloody struggle. Meanwhile, President Lincoln’s beloved eleven-year-old son, Willie, lies upstairs in the White House, gravely ill. In a matter of days, despite predictions of a recovery, Willie dies and is laid to rest in a Georgetown cemetery. “My poor boy, he was too good for this earth,” the president says at the time. “God has called him home.”
-
-
"Where might God stand?"
- By Mel on 02-17-17
By: George Saunders
-
How High We Go in the Dark
- A Novel
- By: Sequoia Nagamatsu
- Narrated by: Julia Whelan, Brian Nishii, Keisuke Hoashi, and others
- Length: 9 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 2030, a grieving archeologist arrives in the Arctic Circle to continue the work of his recently deceased daughter at the Batagaika Crater, where researchers are studying long-buried secrets now revealed in melting permafrost, including the perfectly preserved remains of a girl who appears to have died of an ancient virus. Once unleashed, the Arctic plague will reshape life on Earth for generations to come, quickly traversing the globe, forcing humanity to devise a myriad of moving and inventive ways to embrace possibility in the face of tragedy.
-
-
Should come with a sadness warning
- By KJH on 03-16-22
-
Rosemary's Baby
- By: Ira Levin
- Narrated by: Mia Farrow
- Length: 6 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
She is a housewife: young, healthy, blissfully happy. He is an actor: charismatic and ambitious. The spacious, sun-filled apartment on Manhattan's Upper West Side is their dream home, a dream that turns into an unspeakable nightmare. Enter the chilling world of Ira Levin, where terror is as near as your new neighbors and where evil wears the most innocent face of all.
-
-
Here Be Witches
- By Michael E. Wallster on 08-05-11
By: Ira Levin
-
The Invasion of the Body Snatchers
- By: Jack Finney
- Narrated by: Kristoffer Tabori
- Length: 6 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
On a quiet fall evening in the small, peaceful town of Mill Valley, California, Dr. Miles Bennell discovers an insidious, horrifying plot. Silently, subtly, almost imperceptibly, alien life-forms are taking over the bodies and minds of his neighbors, his friends, his family, the woman he loves, and the world as he knows it.
-
-
GOOD READ
- By Randall on 04-25-09
By: Jack Finney
-
Leaving Las Vegas
- By: John O'Brien
- Narrated by: L J Ganser
- Length: 6 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Leaving Las Vegas, the first novel by John O'Brien, is a disturbing and emotionally wrenching story of a woman who embraces life and a man who rejects it, a powerful tale of hard luck and hard drinking and a relationship of tenderness and destruction. An avowed alcoholic, Ben drinks away his family, friends, and, finally, his job. With deliberate resolve, he burns the remnants of his life and heads for Las Vegas to end it all in the last great binge of his hopeless life.
-
-
REAL
- By Derek on 04-23-12
By: John O'Brien
-
In a Lonely Place
- By: Karl Edward Wagner
- Narrated by: Matt Godfrey
- Length: 10 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Karl Edward Wagner (1945-1994) has earned a reputation as one of the finest horror writers of the modern era, but his work has been out of print and nearly unobtainable for many years. His seminal volume In a Lonely Place collects eight of his best tales, including "In the Pines," a classic ghost story evocatively set in the Tennessee woods, "Beyond Any Measure," an original take on the vampire story.
-
-
Soooo good
- By Amazon Customer on 01-07-23
-
The Complete Stories
- By: Clarice Lispector, Katrina Dodson, Benjamin Moser
- Narrated by: full cast
- Length: 22 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Here, gathered in one volume, are the stories that made Clarice a Brazilian legend. Originally a cloth edition of 86 stories, now we have 89 in all, covering her whole amazing career, from her teenage years to her deathbed. In these pages, we meet teenagers becoming aware of their sexual and artistic powers, humdrum housewives whose lives are shattered by unexpected epiphanies, old people who don't know what to do with themselves - and in their stories, Clarice takes us through their lives - and hers - and ours.
-
-
Wonderful Collection
- By XX on 04-25-20
By: Clarice Lispector, and others
-
Elizabeth Finch
- By: Julian Barnes
- Narrated by: Justin Avoth
- Length: 5 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
We'd like to introduce you to Elizabeth Finch. We invite you to take her course in Culture and Civilisation. Her ideas are not to everyone's taste. But she will change the way you see the world. Elizabeth Finch was a teacher, a thinker, an inspiration—always rigorous, always thoughtful. With careful empathy, she guided her students to develop meaningful ideas and to discover their centers of seriousness. As a former student unpacks her notebooks and remembers her uniquely inquisitive mind, her passion for reason resonates through the years.
-
-
Another masterpiece!
- By Davis Perkins on 08-23-22
By: Julian Barnes
-
Dry
- A Memoir
- By: Augusten Burroughs
- Narrated by: Augusten Burroughs
- Length: 8 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
At the request (well, it wasn't really a request) of his employers, Augusten lands in rehab, where his dreams of group therapy with Robert Downey Jr. are immediately dashed by grim reality of fluorescent lighting and paper hospital slippers. When Augusten is forced to examine himself, he finds himself in the worst trouble of all. Because when his thirty days are up, he has to return to his same drunken Manhattan life - and live it sober. Dry is the story of love, loss, and Starbucks as a Higher Power
-
-
Sobriety with a sense of style....
- By heidi on 09-28-03
-
Blackout
- Remembering the Things I Drank to Forget
- By: Sarah Hepola
- Narrated by: Sarah Hepola
- Length: 7 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A memoir of unblinking honesty and poignant, laugh-out-loud humor, Blackout is the story of a woman stumbling into a new kind of adventure - the sober life she never wanted. For Sarah Hepola, alcohol was "the gasoline of all adventure". She spent her evenings at cocktail parties and dark bars where she proudly stayed till last call. But there was a price. Publicly, she covered her shame with self-deprecating jokes, and her career flourished, but as the blackouts accumulated, she could no longer avoid a sinking truth.
-
-
Blackout: A Knockout
- By W Perry Hall on 07-17-15
By: Sarah Hepola
-
Since We Fell
- A Novel
- By: Dennis Lehane
- Narrated by: Julia Whelan
- Length: 12 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Since We Fell follows Rachel Childs, a former journalist who, after an on-air mental breakdown, now lives as a virtual shut-in. In all other respects, however, she enjoys an ideal life with an ideal husband. Until a chance encounter on a rainy afternoon causes that ideal life to fray. As does Rachel's marriage. As does Rachel herself. Sucked into a conspiracy thick with deception, violence, and possibly madness, Rachel must find the strength within herself to conquer unimaginable fears and mind-altering truths.
-
-
Wait ....
- By Ann on 05-17-17
By: Dennis Lehane
-
Tender Is the Night
- By: F. Scott Fitzgerald
- Narrated by: Therese Plummer
- Length: 12 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Set on the French Riviera in the late 1920s, Tender Is the Night is the tragic romance of the young actress Rosemary Hoyt and the stylish American couple Dick and Nicole Diver. A brilliant young psychiatrist at the time of his marriage, Dick is both husband and doctor to Nicole, whose wealth goads him into a lifestyle not his own, and whose growing strength highlights Dick's harrowing demise. A profound study of the romantic concept of character - lyrical, expansive, and hauntingly evocative.
-
-
Subtle yet grand
- By jb on 10-12-15
-
Running the Light
- By: Sam Tallent, Kyle Kinane - foreword
- Narrated by: Greg Chaille, Tracy Chaille, Trae Crowder, and others
- Length: 10 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Debauched, divorced, and courting death, Billy Ray Schafer is a comedian who has forgotten how to laugh. Over the course of seven spun-out days across the American Southwest, he travels from from hell gig to hell gig in search of a reason to keep living in this bleak and violent glimpse into the psyche of a thoroughly ruined man. Ex-inmate, ex-husband, ex-father - comedian is the only title Schafer has left. Trapped in the wreckage of his wasted career, Billy Ray knows the answer to the question: What happens when the opportunity doesn't come - or worse - it comes and goes?
-
-
don't let comedians do a voice actors job
- By Scott Reesor on 07-09-21
By: Sam Tallent, and others
-
Everything Matters!
- A Novel
- By: Ron Currie Jr.
- Narrated by: Abby Craden, Hillary Huber, Mark Deakins, and others
- Length: 12 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In infancy, Junior Thibodeaux is encoded with a prophesy: A comet will obliterate life on Earth in 36 years. Alone in this knowledge, he comes of age in rural Maine grappling with the question: Does anything I do matter? While the voice that has accompanied him since conception appraises his choices, Junior's loved ones emerge with parallel stories - his anxious mother.
-
-
Everything Is A Plot Twist!
- By Bill M. Fuller on 12-18-09
By: Ron Currie Jr.
Editorial reviews
Books narrated by the author carry a special promise, a promise not always kept — to hear the text as spoken by its creator suggests that the listener will have a heightened experience of the story. In Ablutions, Patrick deWitt’s depressed drone projects the listless entropy of the committed barfly: his flat inflections are aimed squarely at the bottom of the glass, down among the dregs. It’s an apt choice: the narrator can’t seem to find the energy to leave his bar-bound existence, to make good by his wife and climb out of the rut.
There are unavoidable parallels with Bukowski, but these are superficial. This book is about the thirst for escape — from loneliness and from crushing routine, a thirst that is denied relief by deWitt’s joyless delivery. There is also a rich eye for detail: in a world where everything is blurred, the character sketches are vivid, like etchings drawn on the back of a dampened coaster. Regulars and freeloaders, dealers and thieves, has-beens and wannabes all parade for our benefit in a never-ending circle. The alcoholism and associated bad behavior aren’t the main draw here; it’s the colorful interrelations of the bar’s patrons, their need to foster ersatz friendships, bond over booze, and drink away the loneliness. Even the introduction of a supernatural element suggests that deWitt is more interested in commenting on a kind of spiritual vacuum. He is like an anthropologist looking at the bizarre behavior of a subterranean species, through a glass, darkly. He wants to try and understand these regulars in an attempt to understand himself, and whatever keeps him tied to this dead-end life. “You want to know what it is about their existence that fuels the need to inhabit not just the same building every night, but the same bar stool, on which they sip the same drink.”
While there is no judgement of the characters, there is precious little empathy in Ablutions, which serves to alienate. But the pictures deWitt creates are so vivid, like flashbacks to a night of debauchery; you’ll be glad that you dropped by, even happier to leave. —Dafydd Phillips
Related to this topic
-
Born a Crime
- Stories from a South African Childhood
- By: Trevor Noah
- Narrated by: Trevor Noah
- Length: 8 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this award-winning Audible Studios production, Trevor Noah tells his wild coming-of-age tale during the twilight of apartheid in South Africa. It’s a story that begins with his mother throwing him from a moving van to save him from a potentially fatal dispute with gangsters, then follows the budding comedian’s path to self-discovery through episodes both poignant and comical.
-
-
Great book and perfect narration
- By MarilynArms on 12-15-16
By: Trevor Noah
-
The Best Man's Ghostwriter
- By: Matthew Starr
- Narrated by: Glen Powell, Nicholas Braun, Ashley Park, and others
- Length: 4 hrs and 37 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A bad best man’s speech can ruin a wedding. Why do we plan every detail of a perfect day and then give the groom’s idiot best friend five minutes of total power? Enter Nate (Glen Powell), a speechwriter-for-hire who helps people write incredible best man speeches. To keep the best man from embarrassing himself (and the newlyweds), Nate uses his list of don’ts: Don’t mention the exes, don’t be rated R, and don’t bum everyone out. Nate’s system never fails. That is, until he meets Dan (Nicholas Braun).
-
-
SO GOOD
- By Csutty on 09-23-24
By: Matthew Starr
-
Slaughterhouse-Five
- By: Kurt Vonnegut
- Narrated by: James Franco
- Length: 5 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Traumatized by the bombing of Dresden at the time he had been imprisoned, Pilgrim drifts through all events and history, sometimes deeply implicated, sometimes a witness. He is surrounded by Vonnegut's usual large cast of continuing characters (notably here the hack science fiction writer Kilgore Trout and the alien Tralfamadorians, who oversee his life and remind him constantly that there is no causation, no order, no motive to existence).
-
-
Don't Quit Your Daytime Job, James
- By Keith on 11-20-15
By: Kurt Vonnegut
-
The Great Indoors
- By: Ginny Hogan
- Narrated by: Mae Whitman
- Length: 3 hrs and 53 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Alice's journey begins as all good journeys do: hitting on the sales guy at REI. After a tumultuous breakup, a quick career transition, family upheaval, and a sobriety journey that didn't fix her life quite as much as she expected it to, Alice decides that the only way to solve all her problems is to hike the Pacific Crest Trail. But as she begins preparing for the months-long quest, she realizes the answers she's seeking might not be on top of a snow-covered mountain. Especially since she just learned there was snow in California.
-
-
Chuck full of laughs to lift anyone's spirits.
- By Laura Boogaert on 09-22-24
By: Ginny Hogan
-
I Can't Make This Up
- Life Lessons
- By: Neil Strauss - contributor, Kevin Hart
- Narrated by: Kevin Hart
- Length: 11 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Superstar comedian and Hollywood box-office star Kevin Hart turns his immense talent to the written word by writing some words. Some of those words include: the, a, for, above, and even even. Put them together and you have the funniest, most heartfelt, and most inspirational memoir on survival, success, and the importance of believing in yourself since Old Yeller.
-
-
Best Audiobook I Ever Listened To
- By Sam Clear on 07-13-17
By: Neil Strauss - contributor, and others
-
American Psycho
- By: Bret Easton Ellis
- Narrated by: Pablo Schreiber
- Length: 16 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Patrick Bateman moves among the young and trendy in 1980s Manhattan. Young, handsome, and well educated, Bateman earns his fortune on Wall Street by day while spending his nights in ways we cannot begin to fathom. Expressing his true self through torture and murder, Bateman prefigures an apocalyptic horror that no society could bear to confront.
-
-
Fanntastic book but maybe not for everyone....
- By So Fain on 03-27-11
-
Born a Crime
- Stories from a South African Childhood
- By: Trevor Noah
- Narrated by: Trevor Noah
- Length: 8 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this award-winning Audible Studios production, Trevor Noah tells his wild coming-of-age tale during the twilight of apartheid in South Africa. It’s a story that begins with his mother throwing him from a moving van to save him from a potentially fatal dispute with gangsters, then follows the budding comedian’s path to self-discovery through episodes both poignant and comical.
-
-
Great book and perfect narration
- By MarilynArms on 12-15-16
By: Trevor Noah
-
The Best Man's Ghostwriter
- By: Matthew Starr
- Narrated by: Glen Powell, Nicholas Braun, Ashley Park, and others
- Length: 4 hrs and 37 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A bad best man’s speech can ruin a wedding. Why do we plan every detail of a perfect day and then give the groom’s idiot best friend five minutes of total power? Enter Nate (Glen Powell), a speechwriter-for-hire who helps people write incredible best man speeches. To keep the best man from embarrassing himself (and the newlyweds), Nate uses his list of don’ts: Don’t mention the exes, don’t be rated R, and don’t bum everyone out. Nate’s system never fails. That is, until he meets Dan (Nicholas Braun).
-
-
SO GOOD
- By Csutty on 09-23-24
By: Matthew Starr
-
Slaughterhouse-Five
- By: Kurt Vonnegut
- Narrated by: James Franco
- Length: 5 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Traumatized by the bombing of Dresden at the time he had been imprisoned, Pilgrim drifts through all events and history, sometimes deeply implicated, sometimes a witness. He is surrounded by Vonnegut's usual large cast of continuing characters (notably here the hack science fiction writer Kilgore Trout and the alien Tralfamadorians, who oversee his life and remind him constantly that there is no causation, no order, no motive to existence).
-
-
Don't Quit Your Daytime Job, James
- By Keith on 11-20-15
By: Kurt Vonnegut
-
The Great Indoors
- By: Ginny Hogan
- Narrated by: Mae Whitman
- Length: 3 hrs and 53 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Alice's journey begins as all good journeys do: hitting on the sales guy at REI. After a tumultuous breakup, a quick career transition, family upheaval, and a sobriety journey that didn't fix her life quite as much as she expected it to, Alice decides that the only way to solve all her problems is to hike the Pacific Crest Trail. But as she begins preparing for the months-long quest, she realizes the answers she's seeking might not be on top of a snow-covered mountain. Especially since she just learned there was snow in California.
-
-
Chuck full of laughs to lift anyone's spirits.
- By Laura Boogaert on 09-22-24
By: Ginny Hogan
-
I Can't Make This Up
- Life Lessons
- By: Neil Strauss - contributor, Kevin Hart
- Narrated by: Kevin Hart
- Length: 11 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Superstar comedian and Hollywood box-office star Kevin Hart turns his immense talent to the written word by writing some words. Some of those words include: the, a, for, above, and even even. Put them together and you have the funniest, most heartfelt, and most inspirational memoir on survival, success, and the importance of believing in yourself since Old Yeller.
-
-
Best Audiobook I Ever Listened To
- By Sam Clear on 07-13-17
By: Neil Strauss - contributor, and others
-
American Psycho
- By: Bret Easton Ellis
- Narrated by: Pablo Schreiber
- Length: 16 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Patrick Bateman moves among the young and trendy in 1980s Manhattan. Young, handsome, and well educated, Bateman earns his fortune on Wall Street by day while spending his nights in ways we cannot begin to fathom. Expressing his true self through torture and murder, Bateman prefigures an apocalyptic horror that no society could bear to confront.
-
-
Fanntastic book but maybe not for everyone....
- By So Fain on 03-27-11
What listeners say about Ablutions
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Stephen
- 12-17-11
drunkenness is daft
Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?
Funny style, seeing world from inside one guy's head inside a scene of drunks.
What does Patrick Dewitt bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?
Author narrates quite well.
Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?
Yes one session works well for this length and momentum.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Darwin8u
- 10-08-12
A fuzzy, high-energy migrane of a novel.
This is a novel equally about hating work and loving booze. No. That isn't true. This is a novel that is about hating work and drinking booze and hating yourself. It belongs on your untidy shelf next to Under the Volcano, Leaving Las Vegas, Appointment in Samarra and Tender is the Night. IT is a fuzzy, high-energy migrane of a novel and that is part of its clouded brilliance.
In general, listening to a novel that is read by the author is either an inspired or debased choice (like white pants on women). DeWitt was an inspired narrator.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
14 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Donna G. Mahoney
- 04-20-16
Loved the story like Barfly!
Made me feel I was in Barfly! It's hard to listen to a book and get the gist of what the reader wanted you to feel because you're hearing a performance. I hoped the author would be the perfect reader, so it was odd that I thought ihe should have been more animated. This was coming off of listening to "You" which was so well read!! Still a great book! I wish I had time to read!
I'm definitely going to add Patrick deWitt's others to my wish list!
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Vicki L Dungan
- 12-03-18
Don’t bother
JMHOYMMV: This is bunch of boring self-wallowing and self-pitying angst delivered deadpan, droning on endlessly.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Robert
- 02-28-12
I wish I read this book rather than listened to it
I thought DeWitt’s ‘Sister Brothers’ was one of the best books of 2011 so I was anticipating listening to Dewitt’s first book Absolution.
I wish I read this book rather than listened to it. Structurally the work is a collection of character sketches of patrons at a dive bar. In book form these would probably compromise 1 or 2 pages and you could really savour the writing, descriptions, and gallows humour. But on audiobook the descriptions fade from one grotesque to another making the experience of listening to it just a hum of misanthropy.
The book itself is very much like the writing of Buckowski so if you are a fan you might like ‘Absolution’. I had nothing wrong with the message I just wish I experienced it in a different medium.
The narration suits the writing.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
3 people found this helpful