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Action Park
- Fast Times, Wild Rides, and the Untold Story of America's Most Dangerous Amusement Park
- Narrated by: Michael Satow
- Length: 9 hrs and 41 mins
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Publisher's summary
"Citizen Kane does Adventureland." (The Washington Post)
The outlandish, hilarious, terrifying, and almost impossible-to-believe story of the legendary, dangerous amusement park where millions were entertained and almost as many bruises were sustained, told through the eyes of the founder's son
Often called "Accident Park", "Class Action Park", or "Traction Park", Action Park was an American icon. Entertaining more than a million people a year in the 1980s, the New Jersey-based amusement playland placed no limits on danger or fun, a monument to the anything-goes spirit of the era that left guests in control of their own adventures - sometimes with tragic results. Though it closed its doors in 1996 after nearly 20 years, it has remained a subject of constant fascination ever since, an establishment completely anathema to our modern culture of rules and safety.
Action Park is the first-ever unvarnished look at the history of this DIY Disneyland, as seen through the eyes of Andy Mulvihill, the son of the park's idiosyncratic founder, Gene Mulvihill. From his early days testing precarious rides to working his way up to chief lifeguard of the infamous Wave Pool to later helping run the whole park, Andy's story is equal parts hilarious and moving, chronicling the life and death of a uniquely American attraction, a wet and wild 1980s adolescence, and a son's struggle to understand his father's quixotic quest to become the Walt Disney of New Jersey. Packing in all of the excitement of a day at Action Park, this is destined to be one of the most unforgettable memoirs of the year.
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Critic reviews
“I went to Action Park exactly once in the 1990s. I saw people with open wounds. I was asked if I was an expert swimmer by a bored 16 year old before entering a pitch dark water pipe that ejected me feet over ice cold water. I bruised my ribs on the turn of one water slide and spent the next day in exquisite pain. I never wanted to go back again. Until I read this book. Now I miss it. Why do we as a species crave danger and punishment? You won’t find the answer here, but you will find story after unbelievable story of a place that should have never existed.” (John Hodgman, author of Vacationland and Medallion Status)
"Reading Andy Mulvihill’s chronicle of fast times at his father Gene’s amusement park resembles an actual visit: fun and hilarity one second, shock and horror the next...Alternately wistful and clear-eyed about the past, Andy’s story will be cherished by those who remember their own Coppertone-scented teen summers.” (Booklist)
"Action Park, like Jurassic Park, brims with mortal danger, except Action Park was somehow real. If you ever worked a summer job with guys named Smoke, Puff and Ring-Ding, you'll instantly recognize the time and place. Every page is so redolent of beer, fear, lust and chlorine that it’s practically scratch-and-sniff." (Steve Rushin, author of Sting-Ray Afternoons and Nights in White Castle)
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Big-wave surfer Garrett McNamara set the world record for the sport, surfing a 78-foot wave in Nazare, Portugal, in 2011, a record he smashed two years later at the same break. Propelled by the challenge and promise of bigger, more difficult waves, this adrenaline-fueled loner and polarizing figure travels the globe to ride the most dangerous swells the oceans have to offer, from calving glaciers to hurricane swells. But what motivates McNamara to go to such extremes - to risk everything for one thrilling ride?
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Awesome Story and Narration.
- By oregonlife on 10-16-18
By: Garrett McNamara, and others
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This Love Is Not for Cowards
- Salvation and Soccer in Ciudad Juárez
- By: Robert Andrew Powell
- Narrated by: Fred Sanders
- Length: 10 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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As Mexico has descended into a feudal narco-state - one where cartels, death squads, the army, and local police all fight over billions of dollars in profits from drug and human trafficking - the border city of Jurez has been hit hardest of all. And yet, more than a million people still live there. They even love their impoverished city, proudly repeating its mantra: "Amor por Jurez." Nothing exemplifies the spirit and hope of Juarenses more than the Indios, the city's beloved but hard-luck soccer team.
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Loved it
- By Nathan & Kira Huggins on 04-14-15
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Rammer Jammer Yellow Hammer
- A Journey Into the Heart of Fan Mania
- By: Warren St. John
- Narrated by: Michael Kramer
- Length: 9 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
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Warren St. John decided to find out why people care so much about the outcomes of games they're not playing in by joining a group where the particulars of the fan psyche would show themselves in sharp relief: the caravan of hundreds of RVs that follow the Alabama Crimson Tide across the South, taking over college towns with a moveable feast of Weber grills, karaoke machines, Igloo coolers, and fast-draining liquor bottles.
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Well done
- By James Younger on 10-07-04
By: Warren St. John
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Get Out of Your Own Way
- How to Overcome Any Obstacle in Your Life
- By: Larry Winget
- Narrated by: Larry Winget
- Length: 4 hrs and 19 mins
- Original Recording
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You think you know what you want in life. You've tried to achieve those things. But if you still don't have them, the culprit may be closer than you think. In this perspective-altering program, the world-renowned Pitbull of Personal Development(tm), Larry Winget, exposes the things you are doing right now to unknowingly prevent your own success in the most important areas of your life.
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Was just OK
- By KatieReviewsStuff on 01-30-17
By: Larry Winget
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1 Dead in Attic
- After Katrina
- By: Chris Rose
- Narrated by: Bronson Pinchot
- Length: 9 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
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1 Dead in Attic is a collection of stories by Times-Picayune columnist Chris Rose, recounting the first harrowing year and a half of life in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. Celebrated as a local treasure and heaped with national praise, Rose provides a rollercoaster ride of observation, commentary, emotion, tragedy, and even humor - in a way that only he could find in a devastated wasteland. They are stories of the dead and the living, stories of survivors and believers, stories of hope and despair.
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Still Makes Me Hurt
- By Gillian on 02-27-15
By: Chris Rose
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Bird Dream
- Adventures at the Extremes of Human Flight
- By: Matt Higgins
- Narrated by: Adam Verner
- Length: 9 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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Human flight is one of the last great challenges on Earth. Not like how the Wright brothers flew, but how we fly in our dreams. This is the goal of the Wingsuit Landing Project: to soar through the sky at speeds up to one hundred miles per hour and to land without the aid of a parachute. This project is the creation of 37-year-old Jeb Corliss, Jr., a Southern Californian who seeks to emulate a mode of flight more like a flying squirrel than bird or plane.
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Good read
- By Jowly on 04-22-15
By: Matt Higgins
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Is That Thing Diesel?
- By: Paul Carter
- Narrated by: Paul Carter
- Length: 5 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
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At forty years old, a successful writer, husband and father, no longer toiling on offshore drilling rigs, was Paul Carter happily nestled in the cotton wool of suburban life enjoying the fruits of his labour? Was he f**k! With his manic life left far behind and the perfect opportunity to take it easy stretched before him what else would a middle-aged, bike obsessed, man want? Yes, that's right, he'd want to be the first guy to ride around Australia on an underpowered experimental motorcycle that runs on used cooking oil, wouldn't he? Preferably without getting hit by a semi-trailer full of bridge parts.
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Another hit for Paul Carter
- By As happy as a monkey with two bananas in his hands on 06-11-14
By: Paul Carter
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The Age of Daredevils
- By: Michael Clarkson
- Narrated by: Malcolm Hillgartner
- Length: 9 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
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By turns a family drama and an action-adventure story, The Age of Daredevils chronicles the lives of the men and women who devoted themselves to the extraordinary sport of jumping over Niagara Falls in a barrel - a death-defying gamble that proved a powerful temptation to a hardy few. Internationally known in the 1920s and '30s for their barrel-jumping exploits, the Hills were a father-son team of daredevils who also rescued dozens of misguided thrill seekers and accident victims who followed them into the river.
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Interesting
- By Always Honest on 10-10-16
By: Michael Clarkson
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In the Land of Good Living
- A Journey to the Heart of Florida
- By: Kent Russell
- Narrated by: Kent Russell
- Length: 10 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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A wickedly smart, funny, and irresistibly off-kilter account of an improbable thousand-mile journey on foot into the heart of modern Florida, the state that Russell calls "America Concentrate".
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Wanna be writer and other fools
- By E on 08-11-20
By: Kent Russell
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Strange Stones
- By: Peter Hessler
- Narrated by: George Backman
- Length: 13 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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Full of unforgettable figures and an unrelenting spirit of adventure, Strange Stones is a far-ranging, thought-provoking collection of Peter Hessler’s best reportage - a dazzling display of the powerful storytelling, shrewd cultural insight, and warm sense of humor that are the trademarks of his work. Over the last decade, as a staff writer for The New Yorker and the author of three books, Peter Hessler has lived in Asia and the United States, writing as both native and knowledgeable outsider in these two very different regions.
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funny, entertaining
- By Katherine on 08-02-13
By: Peter Hessler
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Ingenious
- A True Story of Invention, Automotive Daring, and the Race to Revive America
- By: Jason Fagone
- Narrated by: Adam Verner
- Length: 12 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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In 2007, the X Prize Foundation announced that it would give $10 million to anyone who could build a safe, mass-producible car that could travel one hundred miles on the energy equivalent of a gallon of gas. The challenge attracted more than one hundred teams from all over the world, including dozens of amateurs. Many designed their cars entirely from scratch, rejecting decades of thinking about what a car should look like.
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Here’s to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels.
- By Shamu from New York on 12-07-13
By: Jason Fagone
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Ranger Confidential
- Living, Working, and Dying in the National Parks
- By: Andrea Lankford
- Narrated by: Julia Motyka
- Length: 9 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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The real stories behind the scenery of America’s national parks. For 12 years, Andrea Lankford lived in the biggest, most impressive national parks in the world, working a job she loved. She chaperoned baby sea turtles on their journey to sea. She pursued bad guys on her galloping patrol horse. She jumped into rescue helicopters bound for the heart of the Grand Canyon. She won arguments with bears. She slept with a few too many rattlesnakes. Hell yeah, it was the best job in the world! Fortunately, Andrea survived it.
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Depressing from Cover to Cover
- By Drew (@drewsant) on 04-13-15
By: Andrea Lankford
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Full Body Burden
- Growing Up in the Nuclear Shadow of Rocky Flats
- By: Kristen Iversen
- Narrated by: Kirsten Potter, Kristen Iversen
- Length: 13 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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Kristen Iversen grew up in a small Colorado town close to Rocky Flats, a secret nuclear weapons plant once designated "the most contaminated site in America." Full Body Burden is the story of a childhood and adolescence in the shadow of the Cold War, in a landscape at once startlingly beautiful and--unknown to those who lived there--tainted with invisible yet deadly particles of plutonium.
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A story that no one else wanted to tell.
- By Carol on 01-28-13
By: Kristen Iversen
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One Breath
- Freediving, Death, and the Quest to Shatter Human Limits
- By: Adam Skolnick
- Narrated by: Paul Boehmer
- Length: 12 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
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One Breath is a gripping and powerful exploration of the strange and fascinating sport of freediving, and of the tragic, untimely death of America's greatest freediver Competitive freediving - a sport built on diving as deep as possible on a single breath - tests the limits of human ability in the most hostile environment on earth.
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It just drags
- By Jesse Mecham on 06-17-16
By: Adam Skolnick
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Zen and Now
- On the Trail of Robert Pirsig and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
- By: Mark Richardson
- Narrated by: Buck Schirner
- Length: 9 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
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In 1968, Robert Pirsig and his son, Chris, made the cross-country motorcycle trip that was the basis for Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, a book that has inspired generations with its searching personal and philosophical narrative. After rereading the book at the onset of middle age, reporter Mark Richardson tuned up his old Suzuki dirt bike and became a "Pirsig Pilgrim".
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Wonderful
- By James on 04-17-09
By: Mark Richardson
What listeners say about Action Park
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- S. A. James
- 02-22-22
The grand disasterpiece!
Probably one of the funniest books I’ve read in recent memory. Excellent and I would recommend to anyone looking for a good laugh or to relive their wasted (literally and figuratively) youth
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- Nick R.
- 10-28-22
better than the movie
Good insight to such a wild place, some funny and out right crazy stories from one of the sun's of the man who is responsible for action park.
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- Big D
- 04-08-21
Sorry I missed it
Jumped off houses, bridges and seawalls as a kid. I would have absolutely maimed myself at AP. Great book, well-performed.
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2 people found this helpful
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- Rae
- 08-24-21
Calling All 90s Kids
This was a love letter to all Action Parks of the late 80s and 90s. And from a late 80s kid, it made my heart long for those hot Jersey summer days where heaven was a filthy, dangerous, overcrowded water slide that you had to stand in line for 2 hours just for 4 minutes of bliss. Thank you, Andy Mulvihill.
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- Anonymous User
- 11-06-21
Great story!
Growing up in this time period I forget how dangerous our world was compared to these safe days ! Good times.
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- Anonymous User
- 07-26-21
What a ride
Very interesting story told with a bit of humor and we'll vocalized. Would love to have seen some of what is discussed.
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- Amazon Customer
- 08-09-21
What an amazing story!!!
This could possibly be one of the most entertaining books I’ve ever read. Slam dunk!
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- Amazon Customer
- 01-24-23
I was scared but I kind of wish I was there
It's hard to believe this really happened, but it is pretty entertaining to read about. Given that this was written by the son of the man that owned Action park I wasn't sure what the quality of the writing would be. But he and his co-writer really did a great job. I also loved the narrator who did this justice and gives it a good dose of New Jersey swagger.
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- That Guy From the Video Store
- 09-05-20
Fascinating, but lacking in substance
Mulvihill is a good storyteller, but it’s hard to get past the fact that over and over again in the book, he acts as though his father wasn’t *really* doing anything wrong. The book wants to put Gene Mulvihill on a pedestal, but he feels more like a malevolent force of nature than the hero his kid thinks he is.
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6 people found this helpful
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- Anonymous User
- 09-12-20
Worth your time.
I haven't even finished this book and yet I'm giving it five stars. I'm giving it five stars before finishing it because we all know how it ends, and that's irrelevant; the park closes. I looked up "Action Park" because of the obvious sensationalism of the subject matter. I discovered a book about a sensible son coming to grips with being raised by a reckless, neurotic father which ultimately amounts to people watching gold. As entertaining as non fiction gets.
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1 person found this helpful