
American War
A Novel
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
$0.99/mo for the first 3 months

Buy for $20.25
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
-
Narrated by:
-
Dion Graham
-
By:
-
Omar El Akkad
About this listen
An audacious and powerful debut novel: a second American Civil War, a devastating plague, and one family caught deep in the middle - a story that asks what might happen if America were to turn its most devastating policies and deadly weapons upon itself.
Sarat Chestnut, born in Louisiana, is only six when the Second American Civil War breaks out in 2074. But even she knows that oil is outlawed, that Louisiana is half underwater, that unmanned drones fill the sky. And when her father is killed and her family is forced into Camp Patience for displaced persons, she quickly begins to be shaped by her particular time and place until, finally, through the influence of a mysterious functionary, she is turned into a deadly instrument of war. Telling her story is her nephew, Benjamin Chestnut, born during the war - part of the Miraculous Generation - and now an old man confronting the dark secret of his past, his family's role in the conflict and, in particular, that of his aunt, a woman who saved his life while destroying untold others.
©2017 Omar El Akkad (P)2017 Random House AudioListeners also enjoyed...
-
Parable of the Sower
- By: Octavia E. Butler
- Narrated by: Lynne Thigpen
- Length: 12 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
God is change. That is the central truth of the Earthseed movement, whose unlikely prophet is 18-year-old Lauren Olamina. The young woman's diary entries tell the story of her life amid a violent 21st-century hell of walled neighborhoods and drug-crazed pyromaniacs - and reveal her evolving Earthseed philosophy. Against a backdrop of horror emerges a message of hope: if we are willing to embrace divine change, we will survive to fulfill our destiny among the stars.
-
-
Dystopia before dystopia was cool...
- By Amber on 05-28-14
-
What Strange Paradise
- A Novel
- By: Omar El Akkad
- Narrated by: Dion Graham
- Length: 6 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
More bodies have washed up on the shores of a small island. Another overfilled, ill-equipped, dilapidated ship has sunk under the weight of its too many passengers: Syrians, Ethiopians, Egyptians, Lebanese, Palestinians, all of them desperate to escape untenable lives back in their homelands. But miraculously, someone has survived the passage: nine-year-old Amir, a Syrian boy who is soon rescued by Vänna. Vänna.
-
-
Absolutely terrific.
- By Catherine Kennedy on 08-14-21
By: Omar El Akkad
-
The Refugees
- By: Viet Thanh Nguyen
- Narrated by: Viet Thanh Nguyen
- Length: 5 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
With the coruscating gaze that informed The Sympathizer, in The Refugees Viet Thanh Nguyen gives voice to lives led between two worlds, the adopted homeland and the country of birth. From a young Vietnamese refugee who suffers profound culture shock when he comes to live with two gay men in San Francisco, to a woman whose husband is suffering from dementia and starts to confuse her for a former lover, to a girl living in Ho Chi Minh City whose older half sister comes back from America having seemingly accomplished everything she never will.
-
-
Good collection of short stories
- By Thomas More on 03-19-17
-
Demon Copperhead
- A Novel
- By: Barbara Kingsolver
- Narrated by: Charlie Thurston
- Length: 21 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Set in the mountains of southern Appalachia, Demon Copperhead is the story of a boy born to a teenaged single mother in a single-wide trailer, with no assets beyond his dead father’s good looks and copper-colored hair, a caustic wit, and a fierce talent for survival. Relayed in his own unsparing voice, Demon braves the modern perils of foster care, child labor, derelict schools, athletic success, addiction, disastrous loves, and crushing losses.
-
-
Wow! It’s a Masterpiece
- By Billy on 10-25-22
-
Moon of the Crusted Snow
- A Novel
- By: Waubgeshig Rice
- Narrated by: Billy Merasty
- Length: 6 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
With winter looming, a small northern Anishinaabe community goes dark. Cut off, people become passive and confused. Panic builds as the food supply dwindles. While the band council and a pocket of community members struggle to maintain order, an unexpected visitor arrives, escaping the crumbling society to the south. Soon after, others follow. Frustrated by the building chaos, a group of young friends and their families turn to the land and Anishinaabe tradition in hopes of helping their community thrive again.
-
-
Really great book!!!
- By Malia on 04-23-19
By: Waubgeshig Rice
-
Oryx and Crake
- By: Margaret Atwood
- Narrated by: Campbell Scott
- Length: 10 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The narrator of Atwood's riveting novel calls himself Snowman. When the story opens, he is sleeping in a tree, wearing an old bedsheet, mourning the loss of his beloved Oryx and his best friend Crake, and slowly starving to death. He searches for supplies in a wasteland where insects proliferate and pigoons and wolvogs ravage the pleeblands, where ordinary people once lived, and the Compounds that sheltered the extraordinary. As he tries to piece together what has taken place, the narrative shifts to decades earlier. How did everything fall apart so quickly?
-
-
Brilliant Science Fiction
- By Michael on 05-20-03
By: Margaret Atwood
-
Parable of the Sower
- By: Octavia E. Butler
- Narrated by: Lynne Thigpen
- Length: 12 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
God is change. That is the central truth of the Earthseed movement, whose unlikely prophet is 18-year-old Lauren Olamina. The young woman's diary entries tell the story of her life amid a violent 21st-century hell of walled neighborhoods and drug-crazed pyromaniacs - and reveal her evolving Earthseed philosophy. Against a backdrop of horror emerges a message of hope: if we are willing to embrace divine change, we will survive to fulfill our destiny among the stars.
-
-
Dystopia before dystopia was cool...
- By Amber on 05-28-14
-
What Strange Paradise
- A Novel
- By: Omar El Akkad
- Narrated by: Dion Graham
- Length: 6 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
More bodies have washed up on the shores of a small island. Another overfilled, ill-equipped, dilapidated ship has sunk under the weight of its too many passengers: Syrians, Ethiopians, Egyptians, Lebanese, Palestinians, all of them desperate to escape untenable lives back in their homelands. But miraculously, someone has survived the passage: nine-year-old Amir, a Syrian boy who is soon rescued by Vänna. Vänna.
-
-
Absolutely terrific.
- By Catherine Kennedy on 08-14-21
By: Omar El Akkad
-
The Refugees
- By: Viet Thanh Nguyen
- Narrated by: Viet Thanh Nguyen
- Length: 5 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
With the coruscating gaze that informed The Sympathizer, in The Refugees Viet Thanh Nguyen gives voice to lives led between two worlds, the adopted homeland and the country of birth. From a young Vietnamese refugee who suffers profound culture shock when he comes to live with two gay men in San Francisco, to a woman whose husband is suffering from dementia and starts to confuse her for a former lover, to a girl living in Ho Chi Minh City whose older half sister comes back from America having seemingly accomplished everything she never will.
-
-
Good collection of short stories
- By Thomas More on 03-19-17
-
Demon Copperhead
- A Novel
- By: Barbara Kingsolver
- Narrated by: Charlie Thurston
- Length: 21 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Set in the mountains of southern Appalachia, Demon Copperhead is the story of a boy born to a teenaged single mother in a single-wide trailer, with no assets beyond his dead father’s good looks and copper-colored hair, a caustic wit, and a fierce talent for survival. Relayed in his own unsparing voice, Demon braves the modern perils of foster care, child labor, derelict schools, athletic success, addiction, disastrous loves, and crushing losses.
-
-
Wow! It’s a Masterpiece
- By Billy on 10-25-22
-
Moon of the Crusted Snow
- A Novel
- By: Waubgeshig Rice
- Narrated by: Billy Merasty
- Length: 6 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
With winter looming, a small northern Anishinaabe community goes dark. Cut off, people become passive and confused. Panic builds as the food supply dwindles. While the band council and a pocket of community members struggle to maintain order, an unexpected visitor arrives, escaping the crumbling society to the south. Soon after, others follow. Frustrated by the building chaos, a group of young friends and their families turn to the land and Anishinaabe tradition in hopes of helping their community thrive again.
-
-
Really great book!!!
- By Malia on 04-23-19
By: Waubgeshig Rice
-
Oryx and Crake
- By: Margaret Atwood
- Narrated by: Campbell Scott
- Length: 10 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The narrator of Atwood's riveting novel calls himself Snowman. When the story opens, he is sleeping in a tree, wearing an old bedsheet, mourning the loss of his beloved Oryx and his best friend Crake, and slowly starving to death. He searches for supplies in a wasteland where insects proliferate and pigoons and wolvogs ravage the pleeblands, where ordinary people once lived, and the Compounds that sheltered the extraordinary. As he tries to piece together what has taken place, the narrative shifts to decades earlier. How did everything fall apart so quickly?
-
-
Brilliant Science Fiction
- By Michael on 05-20-03
By: Margaret Atwood
-
Kindred
- By: Octavia E. Butler
- Narrated by: Kim Staunton
- Length: 10 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Having just celebrated her 26th birthday in 1976 California, Dana, an African-American woman, is suddenly and inexplicably wrenched through time into antebellum Maryland. After saving a drowning White boy there, she finds herself staring into the barrel of a shotgun and is transported back to the present just in time to save her life. During numerous such time-defying episodes with the same young man, she realizes she's been given a challenge.
-
-
The Past of Slavery Still Moves and Wounds Us
- By Jefferson on 12-05-10
-
The Passage
- A Novel (Book One of The Passage Trilogy)
- By: Justin Cronin
- Narrated by: Scott Brick, Adenrele Ojo, Abby Craden
- Length: 36 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
“It happened fast. Thirty-two minutes for one world to die, another to be born". An epic and gripping tale of catastrophe and survival, The Passage is the story of Amy - abandoned by her mother at the age of six, pursued, and then imprisoned by the shadowy figures behind a government experiment of apocalyptic proportions. But Special Agent Brad Wolgast, the lawman sent to track her down, is disarmed by the curiously quiet girl and risks everything to save her. As the experiment goes nightmarishly wrong, Wolgast secures her escape - but he can’t stop society’s collapse.
-
-
You love it or you hate it...
- By Nikki on 06-23-10
By: Justin Cronin
-
The Ministry for the Future
- A Novel
- By: Kim Stanley Robinson
- Narrated by: Jennifer Fitzgerald, Fajer Al-Kaisi, Ramon de Ocampo, and others
- Length: 20 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Ministry for the Future is a masterpiece of the imagination, using fictional eyewitness accounts to tell the story of how climate change will affect us all. Its setting is not a desolate, post-apocalyptic world, but a future that is almost upon us - and in which we might just overcome the extraordinary challenges we face.
-
-
Great ideas, uneven narration
- By depthpsychologist on 12-09-20
-
What Is the What
- By: Dave Eggers
- Narrated by: Dion Graham
- Length: 20 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Valentino's travels, truly Biblical in scope, bring him in contact with government soldiers, janjaweed-like militias, liberation rebels, hyenas and lions, disease and starvation, and a string of unexpected romances. Ultimately, Valentino finds safety in Kenya and, just after the millennium, is finally resettled in the United States, from where this novel is narrated.
-
-
A Story Aching to be Told
- By Susan on 04-24-13
By: Dave Eggers
-
Future Home of the Living God
- A Novel
- By: Louise Erdrich
- Narrated by: Louise Erdrich
- Length: 10 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The world as we know it is ending. Evolution has reversed itself, affecting every living creature on earth. Science cannot stop the world from running backward, as woman after woman gives birth to infants that appear to be primitive species of humans. Thirty-two-year-old Cedar Hawk Songmaker, adopted daughter of a pair of big-hearted, open-minded Minneapolis liberals, is as disturbed and uncertain as the rest of America around her. But for Cedar, this change is profound and deeply personal. She is four months pregnant.
-
-
“Nolite te bastardes carborundorum”
- By Mel on 11-27-17
By: Louise Erdrich
-
The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes
- A Hunger Games Novel
- By: Suzanne Collins
- Narrated by: Santino Fontana
- Length: 16 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It is the morning of the reaping that will kick off the 10th annual Hunger Games. In the Capitol, 18-year-old Coriolanus Snow is preparing for his one shot at glory as a mentor in the Games. The once-mighty house of Snow has fallen on hard times, its fate hanging on the slender chance that Coriolanus will be able to out charm, outwit, and outmaneuver his fellow students to mentor the winning tribute. The odds are against him. He’s been given the humiliating assignment of mentoring the female tribute from District 12, the lowest of the low.
-
-
Bad part
- By Edgars Dumins on 05-19-20
By: Suzanne Collins
-
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 Orphan Master's Son
- A Novel
- By: Adam Johnson
- Narrated by: Tim Kang, Josiah D. Lee, James Kyson Lee, and others
- Length: 19 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Pak Jun Do is the haunted son of a lost mother - a singer “stolen” to Pyongyang - and an influential father who runs Long Tomorrows, a work camp for orphans. There the boy is given his first taste of power, picking which orphans eat first and which will be lent out for manual labor. Recognized for his loyalty and keen instincts, Jun Do comes to the attention of superiors in the state, rises in the ranks, and starts on a road from which there will be no return.
-
-
The most compelling listen I've ever owned
- By Lisa on 01-27-12
By: Adam Johnson
-
Prelude to World War III
- The Rise of the Islamic Republic and the Rebirth of America
- By: James Rosone, Miranda Watson
- Narrated by: Alex Hyde-White
- Length: 9 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the not-too-distant future, the United States loses its status as a world Superpower. With the military cut to a barebones level and American leaders focused solely on the nation's internal struggles, the door will open for new powers to emerge on the world stage. In the wake of this power vacuum, China and Russia begin to flex their military muscles and expand their dominance in the world. They have the most up-to-date technological innovations ready for battle: railguns, unmanned drone tank vehicles, exoskeleton suits, and cyber warfare.
-
-
authors under value US sub & intelligence assets.
- By Kimani on 10-03-18
By: James Rosone, and others
-
The Stand
- By: Stephen King
- Narrated by: Grover Gardner
- Length: 47 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This is the way the world ends: with a nanosecond of computer error in a Defense Department laboratory and a million casual contacts that form the links in a chain letter of death. And here is the bleak new world of the day after: a world stripped of its institutions and emptied of 99 percent of its people. A world in which a handful of panicky survivors choose sides - or are chosen.
-
-
My First Completed Stephen King Novel
- By Meaghan Bynum on 02-20-12
By: Stephen King
-
Brave New World
- By: Aldous Huxley
- Narrated by: Michael York
- Length: 8 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When Lenina and Bernard visit a savage reservation, we experience how Utopia can destroy humanity. Cloning, feel-good drugs, anti-aging programs, and total social control through politics, programming, and media: has Aldous Huxley accurately predicted our future? With a storyteller's genius, he weaves these ethical controversies in a compelling narrative that dawns in the year 632 A.F. (After Ford, the deity). When Lenina and Bernard visit a savage reservation, we experience how Utopia can destroy humanity.
-
-
Michael York should stick to the stage and leave narration to the pros.
- By SD on 08-21-19
By: Aldous Huxley
-
Bewilderment
- A Novel
- By: Richard Powers
- Narrated by: Edoardo Ballerini
- Length: 7 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Theo Byrne is a promising young astrobiologist who has found a way to search for life on other planets dozens of light years away. He is also the widowed father of a most unusual nine-year-old. His son, Robin, is funny, loving, and filled with plans. He thinks and feels deeply, adores animals, and can spend hours painting elaborate pictures. He is also on the verge of being expelled from third grade for smashing his friend's face with a metal thermos.
-
-
Not Usually a Richard Powers Fan
- By Billy on 09-28-21
By: Richard Powers
Editorial reviews
Editors Select, April 2017 - Omar El Akkad's ambitious debut novel is set in a dystopian future America amid a second Civil War, following the Chestnut family - particularly young Sarat - as they seek refuge from the encroaching violence near their home in Louisiana. The country is torn apart at first by the divide over climate change and fossil fuels and then by assassination, violence, and plague. With cinematic description and imagery, El Akkad paints a bleak vision, made all the more horrifying by how palpable and timely it all seems. I was initially concerned this book would feel too close to home to be enjoyable - and yet I was utterly transfixed from the very start. I can easily see this novel becoming an important entry into the dystopian canon. Dion Graham's performance is masterful as always. His smooth, measured delivery is welcome guide through this chaotic, dark story. -Sam, Audible Editor
People who viewed this also viewed...
-
What Strange Paradise
- A Novel
- By: Omar El Akkad
- Narrated by: Dion Graham
- Length: 6 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
More bodies have washed up on the shores of a small island. Another overfilled, ill-equipped, dilapidated ship has sunk under the weight of its too many passengers: Syrians, Ethiopians, Egyptians, Lebanese, Palestinians, all of them desperate to escape untenable lives back in their homelands. But miraculously, someone has survived the passage: nine-year-old Amir, a Syrian boy who is soon rescued by Vänna. Vänna.
-
-
Absolutely terrific.
- By Catherine Kennedy on 08-14-21
By: Omar El Akkad
-
One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This
- By: Omar El Akkad
- Narrated by: Omar El Akkad
- Length: 5 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
As an immigrant who came to the West, El Akkad believed that it promised freedom. A place of justice for all. But in the past twenty years, reporting on the War on Terror, Ferguson, climate change, Black Lives Matter protests, and more, and watching the unmitigated slaughter in Gaza, El Akkad has come to the conclusion that much of what the West promises is a lie. That there will always be entire groups of human beings it has never intended to treat as fully human—not just Arabs or Muslims or immigrants, but whoever falls outside the boundaries of privilege.
-
-
Outstanding - Should be required reading
- By Steve Siegmund on 03-19-25
By: Omar El Akkad
-
Weather
- A Novel
- By: Jenny Offill
- Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell
- Length: 3 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Lizzie Benson slid into her job as a librarian without a traditional degree. But this gives her a vantage point from which to practice her other calling: she is a fake shrink. For years, she has tended to her God-haunted mother and her recovering addict brother. They have both stabilized for the moment, but Lizzie has little chance to spend her new free time with husband and son before her old mentor, Sylvia Liller, makes a proposal. She's become famous for her prescient podcast, Hell and High Water, and wants to hire Lizzie to answer the mail she receives.
-
-
Read This Article Before Listening to Weather
- By MOR Denver on 04-28-20
By: Jenny Offill
-
Gun Island
- A Novel
- By: Amitav Ghosh
- Narrated by: Sagar Arya
- Length: 10 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Amitav Ghosh’s Gun Island is a beautifully realized novel that effortlessly spans space and time. It is the story of a world on the brink, of increasing displacement and unstoppable transition. But it is also a story of hope, of a man whose faith in the world and the future is restored by two remarkable women.
-
-
Loved the story and the narrator
- By Frances on 10-10-19
By: Amitav Ghosh
-
Blue Skies
- By: T. C. Boyle
- Narrated by: Alyssa Bresnahan
- Length: 15 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Denied a dog, a baby, and even a faithful boyfriend, Cat decides that she needs a snake: a glistening, writhing creature that can be worn like “jewelry, living jewelry.” But when the budding social influencer finally gives in to impulse, buying a Burmese python from a local pet shop, she sets in motion a chain of increasingly dire events that culminates in one of the most memorable denouements in recent fiction, one that ensnares her entire family, from her eco-obsessed parents, Ottilie and Frank, to her frat-boy-turned-husband, Todd.
-
-
Classic T.C. Boyle Novel
- By Lisa on 11-10-23
By: T. C. Boyle
-
The Ancients
- A Novel
- By: John Larison
- Narrated by: Dani Martineck
- Length: 13 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A young boy and his older sisters find themselves suddenly and utterly alone, orphaned in an abandoned fishing village. Their food supplies dwindling, they set out across a breathtaking yet treacherous wilderness in search of the last of their people. Down the coast, raiders deliver the children's mother, along with the rest of their human cargo, to the last port city of a waning empire. Determined to reunite with her family, she plots her escape—while her fellow captives plan open revolt.
-
-
Such a well written and thought provoking book!
- By kat on 11-09-24
By: John Larison
-
What Strange Paradise
- A Novel
- By: Omar El Akkad
- Narrated by: Dion Graham
- Length: 6 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
More bodies have washed up on the shores of a small island. Another overfilled, ill-equipped, dilapidated ship has sunk under the weight of its too many passengers: Syrians, Ethiopians, Egyptians, Lebanese, Palestinians, all of them desperate to escape untenable lives back in their homelands. But miraculously, someone has survived the passage: nine-year-old Amir, a Syrian boy who is soon rescued by Vänna. Vänna.
-
-
Absolutely terrific.
- By Catherine Kennedy on 08-14-21
By: Omar El Akkad
-
One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This
- By: Omar El Akkad
- Narrated by: Omar El Akkad
- Length: 5 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
As an immigrant who came to the West, El Akkad believed that it promised freedom. A place of justice for all. But in the past twenty years, reporting on the War on Terror, Ferguson, climate change, Black Lives Matter protests, and more, and watching the unmitigated slaughter in Gaza, El Akkad has come to the conclusion that much of what the West promises is a lie. That there will always be entire groups of human beings it has never intended to treat as fully human—not just Arabs or Muslims or immigrants, but whoever falls outside the boundaries of privilege.
-
-
Outstanding - Should be required reading
- By Steve Siegmund on 03-19-25
By: Omar El Akkad
-
Weather
- A Novel
- By: Jenny Offill
- Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell
- Length: 3 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Lizzie Benson slid into her job as a librarian without a traditional degree. But this gives her a vantage point from which to practice her other calling: she is a fake shrink. For years, she has tended to her God-haunted mother and her recovering addict brother. They have both stabilized for the moment, but Lizzie has little chance to spend her new free time with husband and son before her old mentor, Sylvia Liller, makes a proposal. She's become famous for her prescient podcast, Hell and High Water, and wants to hire Lizzie to answer the mail she receives.
-
-
Read This Article Before Listening to Weather
- By MOR Denver on 04-28-20
By: Jenny Offill
-
Gun Island
- A Novel
- By: Amitav Ghosh
- Narrated by: Sagar Arya
- Length: 10 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Amitav Ghosh’s Gun Island is a beautifully realized novel that effortlessly spans space and time. It is the story of a world on the brink, of increasing displacement and unstoppable transition. But it is also a story of hope, of a man whose faith in the world and the future is restored by two remarkable women.
-
-
Loved the story and the narrator
- By Frances on 10-10-19
By: Amitav Ghosh
-
Blue Skies
- By: T. C. Boyle
- Narrated by: Alyssa Bresnahan
- Length: 15 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Denied a dog, a baby, and even a faithful boyfriend, Cat decides that she needs a snake: a glistening, writhing creature that can be worn like “jewelry, living jewelry.” But when the budding social influencer finally gives in to impulse, buying a Burmese python from a local pet shop, she sets in motion a chain of increasingly dire events that culminates in one of the most memorable denouements in recent fiction, one that ensnares her entire family, from her eco-obsessed parents, Ottilie and Frank, to her frat-boy-turned-husband, Todd.
-
-
Classic T.C. Boyle Novel
- By Lisa on 11-10-23
By: T. C. Boyle
-
The Ancients
- A Novel
- By: John Larison
- Narrated by: Dani Martineck
- Length: 13 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A young boy and his older sisters find themselves suddenly and utterly alone, orphaned in an abandoned fishing village. Their food supplies dwindling, they set out across a breathtaking yet treacherous wilderness in search of the last of their people. Down the coast, raiders deliver the children's mother, along with the rest of their human cargo, to the last port city of a waning empire. Determined to reunite with her family, she plots her escape—while her fellow captives plan open revolt.
-
-
Such a well written and thought provoking book!
- By kat on 11-09-24
By: John Larison
-
The Deluge
- By: Stephen Markley
- Narrated by: Corey Brill, Danny Campbell, Gibson Frazier, and others
- Length: 40 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the first decades of the 21st century, the world is convulsing, its governments mired in gridlock while a patient but unrelenting ecological crisis looms. America is in upheaval, battered by violent weather and extreme politics. In California in 2013, Tony Pietrus, a scientist studying deposits of undersea methane, receives a death threat.
-
-
Couldn’t get into it.
- By Review Reviewer on 01-20-23
By: Stephen Markley
-
The High House
- A Novel
- By: Jessie Greengrass
- Narrated by: Camilla Rockley, Sam Newton, Mariam Abu-Hejleh
- Length: 6 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Perched on a sloping hill, set away from a small town by the sea, the High House has a tide pool and a mill, a vegetable garden, and, most importantly, a barn full of supplies. Caro, Pauly, Sally, and Grandy are safe, so far, from the rising water that threatens to destroy the town and that has, perhaps, already destroyed everything else. But for how long?
-
-
Narration difficult
- By mdelafield on 07-09-23
-
Divided We Fall (Divided We Fall, Book 1)
- By: Trent Reedy
- Narrated by: Andrew Eiden
- Length: 10 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From the author of Words in the Dust: an actionpacked YA novel set in a frighteningly plausible near future, about what happens when the States are no longer United. Danny Wright never thought he'd be the man to bring down the United States of America. In fact, he enrolled in the National Guard because he wanted to serve his country the way his father did. When the Guard is called up on the governor's orders to police a protest in Boise, it seems like a routine crowdcontrol mission...but then Danny's gun misfires, spooking the other soldiers and the already fractious crowd....
-
-
Great book! Can't wait for book number 2!!
- By Dutch on 12-11-14
By: Trent Reedy
-
The Bear
- By: Andrew Krivak
- Narrated by: Eric Jason Martin
- Length: 4 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A girl and her father live close to the land in the shadow of a lone mountain. They possess a few remnants of civilization: some books, a pane of glass, a set of flint and steel, a comb. The father teaches the girl how to fish and hunt, the secrets of the seasons and the stars. He is preparing her for an adulthood in harmony with nature, for they are the last of humankind. But when the girl finds herself alone in an unknown landscape, it is a bear that will lead her back home through a vast wilderness that offers the greatest lessons of all, if she can only learn to listen.
-
-
Interconnectedness of all life
- By Sherrie Brownell on 07-18-20
By: Andrew Krivak
-
Little Bosses Everywhere
- How the Pyramid Scheme Shaped America
- By: Bridget Read
- Narrated by: Nikki Massoud
- Length: 11 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In Little Bosses Everywhere, journalist Bridget Read tells the gripping story of multilevel marketing in full for the first time, winding from sunny postwar California, where a failed salesman started a vitamin business, through the devoutly religious suburbs of Michigan, where the industry built its political influence, to stadium-size conventions where today’s top sellers preach to die-hard recruits. MLM has enriched powerful people, like the DeVos and Van Andel families, Warren Buffett, and President Donald Trump, all while eroding public institutions and the social safety net.
By: Bridget Read
-
The Darkest Path
- By: Jeff Hirsch
- Narrated by: Dan Bittner
- Length: 8 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A civil war rages between the Glorious Path - a militant religion based on the teachings of a former US soldier - and what's left of the US government. Fifteen-year-old Callum Roe and his younger brother, James, were captured and forced to convert six years ago. Cal has been working in the Path's dog kennels, and is very close to becoming one of the Path's deadliest secret agents.
-
-
A unique twist
- By Michael on 12-28-16
By: Jeff Hirsch
-
The Water Knife
- By: Paolo Bacigalupi
- Narrated by: Almarie Guerra
- Length: 14 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the American Southwest, Nevada, Arizona, and California skirmish for dwindling shares of the Colorado River. Into the fray steps Angel Velasquez, detective, leg breaker, assassin, and spy. A Las Vegas water knife, Angel "cuts" water for his boss, Catherine Case, ensuring that her lush, luxurious arcology developments can bloom in the desert, so the rich can stay wet while the poor get nothing but dust.
-
-
The fight for water in a drought fueled apocalypse
- By Lore on 09-24-15
By: Paolo Bacigalupi
-
The Ministry for the Future
- A Novel
- By: Kim Stanley Robinson
- Narrated by: Jennifer Fitzgerald, Fajer Al-Kaisi, Ramon de Ocampo, and others
- Length: 20 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Ministry for the Future is a masterpiece of the imagination, using fictional eyewitness accounts to tell the story of how climate change will affect us all. Its setting is not a desolate, post-apocalyptic world, but a future that is almost upon us - and in which we might just overcome the extraordinary challenges we face.
-
-
Great ideas, uneven narration
- By depthpsychologist on 12-09-20
-
The Light Pirate
- By: Lily Brooks-Dalton
- Narrated by: Rosemary Benson
- Length: 11 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Florida is slipping away. As devastating weather patterns and rising sea levels wreak gradual havoc on the state’s infrastructure, a powerful hurricane approaches a small town on the southeastern coast. Kirby Lowe, an electrical line worker, his pregnant wife, Frida, and their two sons, Flip and Lucas, prepare for the worst. When the boys go missing just before the hurricane hits, Kirby heads out into the high winds in search of his children. Left alone, Frida goes into premature labor and gives birth to an unusual child, Wanda, whom she names after the catastrophic storm.
-
-
Listed under "action adventure"????
- By NMwritergal on 12-14-22
-
American Spy
- A Novel
- By: Lauren Wilkinson
- Narrated by: Bahni Turpin
- Length: 10 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It’s 1986, the heart of the Cold War, and Marie Mitchell is an intelligence officer with the FBI. She’s brilliant, but she’s also a young Black woman working in an old boys’ club. Her career has stalled out, she’s overlooked for every high-profile squad, and her days are filled with monotonous paperwork. So when she’s given the opportunity to join a shadowy task force aimed at undermining Thomas Sankara, the charismatic revolutionary president of Burkina Faso whose Communist ideology has made him a target for American intervention, she says yes.
-
-
A Spy Novel for Black folk.
- By AJ Walker on 10-07-19
By: Lauren Wilkinson
-
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
-
Perfect Victims
- And the Politics of Appeal
- By: Mohammed El-Kurd
- Narrated by: Mohammed El-Kurd
- Length: 6 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Palestine is a microcosm of the world: on fire, stubborn, fragmented, dignified. While a settler colonial state continues to inflict devastating violence, fundamental truths are deliberately obscured—the perpetrators are coddled while the victims are blamed and placed on trial. How we see Palestine reveals how we see each other; how we see everything else. Masterfully combining candid testimony, history, and reportage, Perfect Victims presents a powerfully simple demand: dignity for the Palestinian.
By: Mohammed El-Kurd
What listeners say about American War
Highly rated for:
Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- andrew
- 04-07-17
It's no picnic - but nourishing all the same.
It's hard to quantify all the reasons you should read this book. While it's certainly not an uplifting tale as the title should suggest, it depicts war in a way most Americans don't grasp, or like to think about. I've read a lot of war journals, and non fiction, and I think this rings true to a lot of what I've seen and read. War is a hate and carelessness made manifest, and we should read more from accounts of the losing side than the winning side. I think Akkad poignantly drives that point home with an inspired piece of fiction. I'd also say it's not a perfectly crafted tale - but it definitely works. Some reviewer call it slow. I'd say it's realistic? It's a book about the victims of war, and the tone and pace reveal a sense of the expansive claustrophobia that long periods of internment and lack of self determination would entail. Impressive debut novel.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
27 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- M. Sanders
- 06-03-17
A Great American Story!
I throughly enjoyed this novel. The best way I can describe this book is as follows:
- A tragic story similar to the girl in the movie Sarafina.
- A story of family history similar to that of the novel The Passage
- The story telling (news accounts and excerpts from history) similar to that of the book World War Z
- A revised history / future based upon the Civil War, similar to the book the Underground Airlines
Also, the narration was excellent. Dion Graham "nailed" the southern accents perfectly. Overall, I felt like I really got to know the characters in the novel, especially Sarat. I would love to see this novel turned into a movie. Omar El Akkad, you did good. very good.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
10 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Paul
- 06-28-17
Here's one for all you confederates
Let's see if I have this right: With Florida under water and an inland sea already well advanced up the Mississippi, the south secedes because they want to maintain their God-given right to burn fossil fuel? Oh well, NASCAR or die! In spite of this weird premise it's a good yarn, if you can abide its hero, the insufferable Serat Chestnut. Plenty of violence. The "blues" are all cruel, deceitful monsters, the southerners are all heroic dead-enders, (depending on how you feel about suicide bombers), and the plucky Serat remains true to the end, which she effects by...OK, no spoilers. I stuck it out because I thought Akkad would get to the total futility of war. Well, sort of, but if you have a Confederate battle flag planted in the bed of your pick-up, this is your book.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
4 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Jason
- 06-24-17
New Twist in Crowded Genre
This book falls into something more literary and experimental. A near-future, war-torn and with an inhospitable environment, creates a realistic setting for our country that is more and more fragmented and polarized. Red and blue take on heavier meanings when war breaks out.
But, this is a character(s) story. This is a family story. I enjoyed it and will listen again.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
2 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- C. Reither
- 12-11-17
Scary to think this could all happen
In the midst of our current political climate, this story hit a bit too close to home at times. It certainly causes the American reader to
Have an inside glimpse of what our lives would be like if war erupted on our soil causing innocent women and children to fend for themselves.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
2 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- philip mateo
- 05-17-23
Great concept but honestly poor execution
The premise of a second American civil war is pretty popular. To imagine it with the technology of the near future sounds like an incredibly compelling story. But man, it wastes all of the potential stories it could’ve told. The excerpts after chapters are reminiscent of the dialogues in World War Z,which does this concept much better, and are much more compelling than the actual narrative. While there is a seed of good story, not to mention commentary on current and past American wars, Sarat’s indoctrination and hatred for the north feels contrived and pointless. It’s just kinda boring
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
- Tim
- 01-09-20
Interesting premise, average delivery
I thought the concept for this novel was intriguing, and the author’s background as a journalist gave him a unique insight. But I found the characters to be unlikable, and the dialogue underwhelming. It feels like a Young Adult novel at times, even though the topics are so serious.
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
- Jacob M.
- 03-19-23
Interesting premise but painfully boring
Struggled to get into the story and the narrator maybe wasn't best placed here. Mediocre.
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
- She said what?
- 08-26-17
Amazing writing
Amazing writing. You won't want to stop. This author's first book really draws you in.
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
- Alan
- 05-07-17
This is an important book.
In my view this is an important and prize-worthy book.
What would it be like for a civilian child to be caught up in a big nation's war against a small enemy? What would it be like for that child to fear truly random death from drones in the sky? What would it be like to be a refugee from the war and have one's family slaughtered in a refugee camp? What might that child do, and why?
Setting this story in an American future brings home the awfulness of these questions and answers in a way that the news cannot.
I hope this novel wins a Nobel prize. It's that good. And that horrible.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
1 person found this helpful