-
An American Type
- Narrated by: Anthony Heald
- Length: 8 hrs and 59 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 $15.56
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
Publisher's summary
Discovered posthumously, this final novel by the author of the greatest American immigrant novel, Call It Sleep, reintroduces us to its protagonist, Roth’s alter ego, Ira, who abandons his controlling lover, Edith, in favor of a blond, aristocratic pianist at the artist colony Yaddo. The ensuing conflict between his Jewish ghetto roots and his high-flown, writerly aspirations forces Ira to abandon his family temporarily for the sun-soaked promise of the American West.
Fast-paced but wrenching, set against a backdrop of crumbling piers, bedbug-infested SROs, and skyscrapers in glimmering Manhattan and seedy Los Angeles, An American Type is perhaps the last firsthand testament of the Depression, as well as a universal statement about the constant reinvention of American identity and the transcendence of love.
Listeners also enjoyed...
-
Veronica's Grave
- A Daughter's Memoir
- By: Barbara Bracht Donsky
- Narrated by: Leslie S. Miller
- Length: 8 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From beyond the grave came a cry for help she could not ignore. Reminiscent in style to Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird and to Betty Smith's A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, Veronica's Grave is the story of a young girl whose mother vanishes one night. No one tells her that her mother has died. She is left a confused child whose father is intent upon erasing any memory of the mother.
-
-
Thought it would be about Veronica...
- By Leah on 02-18-17
-
11-22-63
- A Novel
- By: Stephen King
- Narrated by: Craig Wasson
- Length: 30 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
On November 22, 1963, three shots rang out in Dallas, President Kennedy died, and the world changed. What if you could change it back? In this brilliantly conceived tour de force, Stephen King - who has absorbed the social, political, and popular culture of his generation more imaginatively and thoroughly than any other writer - takes listeners on an incredible journey into the past and the possibility of altering it.
-
-
I Owe Stephen King An Apology
- By Kelly - Write Well Academy on 04-16-12
By: Stephen King
-
Rules of Civility
- A Novel
- By: Amor Towles
- Narrated by: Rebecca Lowman
- Length: 12 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
On the last night of 1937, 25-year-old Katey Kontent is in a second-rate Greenwich Village jazz bar when Tinker Grey, a handsome banker, happens to sit down at the neighboring table. This chance encounter and its startling consequences propel Katey on a year-long journey into the upper echelons of New York society - where she will have little to rely upon other than a bracing wit and her own brand of cool nerve.
-
-
Bright Young Things in a Dark World
- By Michele Kellett on 08-13-12
By: Amor Towles
-
Naked
- By: David Sedaris
- Narrated by: David Sedaris, Amy Sedaris
- Length: 3 hrs and 4 mins
- Abridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Welcome to the hilarious, strange, elegiac, outrageous world of David Sedaris. In Naked, Sedaris turns the current mania for the memoir on its proverbial ear, mining the exceedingly rich terrain of his life, his family, and his unique worldview, a sensibility at once take-no-prisoners sharp and deeply charitable.
-
-
Not the whole book
- By Gabriela on 03-09-13
By: David Sedaris
-
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay
- By: Michael Chabon
- Narrated by: David Colacci
- Length: 26 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It's 1939, in New York City. Joe Kavalier, a young artist who has also been trained in the art of Houdiniesque escape, has just pulled off his greatest feat: smuggling himself out of Hitler's Prague. He's looking to make big money, fast, so that he can bring his family to freedom. His cousin, Brooklyn's own Sammy Clay, is looking for a partner in creating the heroes, stories, and art for the latest novelty to hit the American dreamscape: the comic book. Inspired by their own fantasies, fears, and dreams, they create the Escapist.
-
-
A World I DON'T Ever Want to Escape From.
- By Darwin8u on 06-12-12
By: Michael Chabon
-
The Corrections
- A Novel
- By: Jonathan Franzen
- Narrated by: George Guidall
- Length: 21 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Corrections is a grandly entertaining novel for the new century--a comic, tragic masterpiece about a family breaking down in an age of easy fixes. After almost 50 years as a wife and mother, Enid Lambert is ready to have some fun. Unfortunately, her husband, Alfred, is losing his sanity to Parkinson's disease, and their children have long since flown the family nest to the catastrophes of their own lives. Enid has set her heart on an elusive goal: bringing her family together for one last Christmas at home.
-
-
"Grandly Entertaining"? Really?
- By Georgia Burns on 10-08-13
By: Jonathan Franzen
-
Veronica's Grave
- A Daughter's Memoir
- By: Barbara Bracht Donsky
- Narrated by: Leslie S. Miller
- Length: 8 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From beyond the grave came a cry for help she could not ignore. Reminiscent in style to Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird and to Betty Smith's A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, Veronica's Grave is the story of a young girl whose mother vanishes one night. No one tells her that her mother has died. She is left a confused child whose father is intent upon erasing any memory of the mother.
-
-
Thought it would be about Veronica...
- By Leah on 02-18-17
-
11-22-63
- A Novel
- By: Stephen King
- Narrated by: Craig Wasson
- Length: 30 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
On November 22, 1963, three shots rang out in Dallas, President Kennedy died, and the world changed. What if you could change it back? In this brilliantly conceived tour de force, Stephen King - who has absorbed the social, political, and popular culture of his generation more imaginatively and thoroughly than any other writer - takes listeners on an incredible journey into the past and the possibility of altering it.
-
-
I Owe Stephen King An Apology
- By Kelly - Write Well Academy on 04-16-12
By: Stephen King
-
Rules of Civility
- A Novel
- By: Amor Towles
- Narrated by: Rebecca Lowman
- Length: 12 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
On the last night of 1937, 25-year-old Katey Kontent is in a second-rate Greenwich Village jazz bar when Tinker Grey, a handsome banker, happens to sit down at the neighboring table. This chance encounter and its startling consequences propel Katey on a year-long journey into the upper echelons of New York society - where she will have little to rely upon other than a bracing wit and her own brand of cool nerve.
-
-
Bright Young Things in a Dark World
- By Michele Kellett on 08-13-12
By: Amor Towles
-
Naked
- By: David Sedaris
- Narrated by: David Sedaris, Amy Sedaris
- Length: 3 hrs and 4 mins
- Abridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Welcome to the hilarious, strange, elegiac, outrageous world of David Sedaris. In Naked, Sedaris turns the current mania for the memoir on its proverbial ear, mining the exceedingly rich terrain of his life, his family, and his unique worldview, a sensibility at once take-no-prisoners sharp and deeply charitable.
-
-
Not the whole book
- By Gabriela on 03-09-13
By: David Sedaris
-
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay
- By: Michael Chabon
- Narrated by: David Colacci
- Length: 26 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It's 1939, in New York City. Joe Kavalier, a young artist who has also been trained in the art of Houdiniesque escape, has just pulled off his greatest feat: smuggling himself out of Hitler's Prague. He's looking to make big money, fast, so that he can bring his family to freedom. His cousin, Brooklyn's own Sammy Clay, is looking for a partner in creating the heroes, stories, and art for the latest novelty to hit the American dreamscape: the comic book. Inspired by their own fantasies, fears, and dreams, they create the Escapist.
-
-
A World I DON'T Ever Want to Escape From.
- By Darwin8u on 06-12-12
By: Michael Chabon
-
The Corrections
- A Novel
- By: Jonathan Franzen
- Narrated by: George Guidall
- Length: 21 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Corrections is a grandly entertaining novel for the new century--a comic, tragic masterpiece about a family breaking down in an age of easy fixes. After almost 50 years as a wife and mother, Enid Lambert is ready to have some fun. Unfortunately, her husband, Alfred, is losing his sanity to Parkinson's disease, and their children have long since flown the family nest to the catastrophes of their own lives. Enid has set her heart on an elusive goal: bringing her family together for one last Christmas at home.
-
-
"Grandly Entertaining"? Really?
- By Georgia Burns on 10-08-13
By: Jonathan Franzen
-
Nobody's Fool
- By: Richard Russo
- Narrated by: Ron McLarty
- Length: 24 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Divorced from his own wife and carrying on halfheartedly with another man's, saddled with a bum knee and friends who make enemies redundant, Sully now has one new problem to cope with: a long-estranged son who is in imminent danger of following in his father's footsteps. With its uproarious humor and a heart that embraces humanity's follies as well as its triumphs, Nobody's Fool, from Pulitzer Prize-winning author, Richard Russo, is storytelling at its most generous. Nobody’s Fool was made into a movie starring Paul Newman, Bruce Willis, Jessica Tandy, and Melody Griffith.
-
-
Wonderful Book Fabulous Narrator
- By Marsha on 04-27-05
By: Richard Russo
-
Young Hearts Crying
- By: Richard Yates
- Narrated by: Marc Vietor
- Length: 12 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Yates movingly portrays a man and a woman from their courtship in the 1950s to their divorce in the '70s, chronicling their heartbreaking attempts to reach their highest ambitions. Michael Davenport dreams of being a poet after returning home from World War II, and at first he and his new wife, Lucy, enjoy their life together. But as the decades pass and the success of others creates a fear of failure in both Michael and Lucy, their once bright future gives way to a life of adultery and isolation.
By: Richard Yates
-
Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk
- A Novel
- By: Kathleen Rooney
- Narrated by: Xe Sands
- Length: 8 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It's the last day of 1984, and 85-year-old Lillian Boxfish is about to take a walk. As she traverses a grittier Manhattan, a city anxious after an attack by a still-at-large subway vigilante, she encounters bartenders, bodega clerks, chauffeurs, security guards, bohemians, criminals, children, parents, and parents to be in surprising moments of generosity and grace. While she strolls Lillian recalls a long and eventful life that included a brief reign as the highest paid advertising woman in America - a career cut short by marriage, motherhood, divorce, and a breakdown.
-
-
Lillian takes a stroll down memory lane!
- By Iris Pereyra on 01-29-17
By: Kathleen Rooney
-
Sunny's Nights
- Lost and Found at the Bar at the End of the World
- By: Tim Sultan
- Narrated by: Robert Malloch
- Length: 8 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Imagine that Alice had walked into a bar instead of falling down the rabbit hole. In the tradition of J. R. Moehringer’s The Tender Bar and the classic reportage of Joseph Mitchell, here is an indelible portrait of what is quite possibly the greatest bar in the world—and the mercurial, magnificent man behind it. The first time he saw Sunny’s Bar, in 1995, Tim Sultan was lost, thirsty for a drink, and intrigued by the single bar sign among the forlorn warehouses lining the Brooklyn waterfront.
-
-
Visiting an Era
- By Carolyn on 03-01-16
By: Tim Sultan
-
Growing Up
- By: Russell Baker
- Narrated by: Corey M. Snow
- Length: 8 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this heartfelt memoir by the Masterpiece Theatre host, Pulitzer Prize winner, and groundbreaking New York Times columnist, Russell Baker traces his youth in the mountains of rural Virginia. When Baker was only five, his father died. His mother, strong-willed and matriarchal, never looked back. After all, she had three children to raise. These were Depression years, and Mrs. Baker moved her fledgling family to Baltimore. Baker's mother was determined her children would succeed, and we know her regimen worked for Russell.
-
-
Authentic and Heart Warming
- By Mark Parsells on 01-17-19
By: Russell Baker
-
Empire Falls
- By: Richard Russo
- Narrated by: Ron McLarty
- Length: 20 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Dexter County, Maine, and specifically the town of Empire Falls, has seen better days, and for decades, in fact, only a succession from bad to worse. One by one, its logging and textile enterprises have gone belly-up, and the once vast holdings of the Whiting clan (presided over by the last scion’s widow) now mostly amount to decrepit real estate. The working classes, meanwhile, continue to eke out whatever meager promise isn’t already boarded up. Miles Roby gazes over this ruined kingdom from the Empire Grill, an opportunity of his youth that has become the albatross of his life.
-
-
Hugely Enjoyable
- By margaret on 01-23-12
By: Richard Russo
-
Wonderful Town
- New York Stories from The New Yorker
- By: Woody Allen, John Cheever, E. B. White, and others
- Narrated by: Tyne Daly, Timothy Jerome, Joe Morton, and others
- Length: 9 hrs and 20 mins
- Abridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
New York City is not only The New Yorker magazine's place of origin and its sensibility's lifeblood, it is the heart of American literary culture. Wonderful Town, an anthology of superb short fiction by many of the magazine's most accomplished contributors, celebrates the 75-year marriage between a preeminent publication and its preeminent context with this collection of 44 of its best stories from (so to speak) home.
-
-
Great stories and readers, but technically sloppy
- By Alison on 09-08-04
By: Woody Allen, and others
-
Rolling Nowhere
- Riding the Rails with America's Hoboes
- By: Ted Conover
- Narrated by: Ted Conover
- Length: 9 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Riding the rails, Ted Conover tasted the life of a tramp with companions like Pistol Pete, BB, and Sheba Sheila Sheils. From them he learned survival skills - how to "read" a freight train, scavenge for food and clothing, avoid the railroad "bulls." He was initiated into the customs of their unique, shadowy society - men and women bound together by a mutual bond of failure, camaraderie, and distrust.
-
-
Had potential, but fell short.
- By Evan on 01-06-12
By: Ted Conover
-
The Adventures of Augie March
- By: Saul Bellow
- Narrated by: Tom Parker
- Length: 22 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Augie is a poor but exuberant boy growing up in Chicago during the Depression. While his friends all settle into chosen professions, Augie demands a special destiny. He tests out a wild succession of occupations, proudly rejecting each as too limiting - until he tangles with the glamorous perfectionist Thea.
-
-
THAT part of the Universe visible from Chicago!
- By Darwin8u on 05-09-12
By: Saul Bellow
-
The Brooklyn Follies
- By: Paul Auster
- Narrated by: Paul Auster
- Length: 8 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Nathan Glass has come to Brooklyn to die. Divorced, estranged from his only daughter, the retired life insurance salesman seeks only solitude and anonymity. Then Nathan finds his long-lost nephew, Tom Wood, working in a local bookstore, a far cry from the brilliant academic career he'd begun when Nathan saw him last. Tom's boss is the charismatic Harry Brightman, whom fate has also brought to the "ancient kingdom of Brooklyn, New York".
-
-
Brooklyn IS Still the World
- By Roni on 04-12-07
By: Paul Auster
-
Mr. and Mrs. Bridge
- By: Evan S. Connell
- Narrated by: Joanne Woodward, Paul Newman
- Length: 5 hrs and 50 mins
- Abridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
For Walter Bridge, an ambitious lawyer, and his wife, whose focus is her household, affluence and material comforts create a cocoon of community respectability that cloaks the void within. Mr. Bridge is dominated by reason and common sense but is vaguely aware that something is missing from his life. Mrs. Bridge, now that her children have grown up, is slowly going mad from boredom. They wonder why there is no joy. As adventurous, free-thinking friends introduce new ideas into their household, they come close to making tiny steps toward change.
By: Evan S. Connell
-
Barefoot to Avalon
- A Brother's Story
- By: David Payne
- Narrated by: David Payne
- Length: 8 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 2000, while moving his household from Vermont to North Carolina, David Payne watched from his rearview mirror as his younger brother, George A., driving behind him in a two-man convoy of rental trucks, lost control of his vehicle, fishtailed, flipped over in the road, and died instantly. Soon thereafter, David's life hit a downward spiral. His career came to a standstill, his marriage disintegrated, and his drinking went from a cocktail-hour indulgence to a full-blown addiction.
-
-
Fantastic
- By Susan Newcomb on 04-01-16
By: David Payne
Critic reviews
Related to this topic
-
Sunny's Nights
- Lost and Found at the Bar at the End of the World
- By: Tim Sultan
- Narrated by: Robert Malloch
- Length: 8 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Imagine that Alice had walked into a bar instead of falling down the rabbit hole. In the tradition of J. R. Moehringer’s The Tender Bar and the classic reportage of Joseph Mitchell, here is an indelible portrait of what is quite possibly the greatest bar in the world—and the mercurial, magnificent man behind it. The first time he saw Sunny’s Bar, in 1995, Tim Sultan was lost, thirsty for a drink, and intrigued by the single bar sign among the forlorn warehouses lining the Brooklyn waterfront.
-
-
Visiting an Era
- By Carolyn on 03-01-16
By: Tim Sultan
-
Bright Lights, Big City
- By: Jay McInerney
- Narrated by: Daniel Passer
- Length: 5 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The tragicomedy of a young man in New York City, a writer, never named, who works as a fact-checker for a prestigious magazine. He struggles with the reality of his mother's death, alienation, and the seductive pull of drugs and a vibrant nightlife.
-
-
Curiously, mundanely real
- By Amber on 01-07-12
By: Jay McInerney
-
The Patriots
- A Novel
- By: Sana Krasikov
- Narrated by: Suzanne Toren, George Guidall
- Length: 22 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Florence Fein grows up in Brooklyn in the 1930s, in a family that is gaining a foothold in the middle class. At City College she becomes engaged politically with the left-leaning student groups, and eventually, in the midst of the Depression, she takes a job with a trade organization that has a position for her in Moscow. There, she falls in love with another expatriate American and has a son. Soon after, Florence is sent to a work camp and her son to an orphanage.
-
-
Point of View of characters, past and present collide
- By Angela Adams on 01-29-19
By: Sana Krasikov
-
Mildred Pierce
- By: James M. Cain
- Narrated by: Christine Williams
- Length: 10 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Mildred Pierce had gorgeous legs, a way with a skillet, and a bone-deep core of toughness and determination. She used those attributes to survive a divorce in 1940s America with two children and to claw her way out of poverty, becoming a successful businesswoman. But Mildred also had two weaknesses: a yen for shiftless men and an unreasoning devotion to her monstrous daughter.
-
-
Mildred -- you pierce my heart
- By P. Giorgio on 03-11-11
By: James M. Cain
-
Young Hearts Crying
- By: Richard Yates
- Narrated by: Marc Vietor
- Length: 12 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Yates movingly portrays a man and a woman from their courtship in the 1950s to their divorce in the '70s, chronicling their heartbreaking attempts to reach their highest ambitions. Michael Davenport dreams of being a poet after returning home from World War II, and at first he and his new wife, Lucy, enjoy their life together. But as the decades pass and the success of others creates a fear of failure in both Michael and Lucy, their once bright future gives way to a life of adultery and isolation.
By: Richard Yates
-
Rolling Nowhere
- Riding the Rails with America's Hoboes
- By: Ted Conover
- Narrated by: Ted Conover
- Length: 9 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Riding the rails, Ted Conover tasted the life of a tramp with companions like Pistol Pete, BB, and Sheba Sheila Sheils. From them he learned survival skills - how to "read" a freight train, scavenge for food and clothing, avoid the railroad "bulls." He was initiated into the customs of their unique, shadowy society - men and women bound together by a mutual bond of failure, camaraderie, and distrust.
-
-
Had potential, but fell short.
- By Evan on 01-06-12
By: Ted Conover
-
Sunny's Nights
- Lost and Found at the Bar at the End of the World
- By: Tim Sultan
- Narrated by: Robert Malloch
- Length: 8 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Imagine that Alice had walked into a bar instead of falling down the rabbit hole. In the tradition of J. R. Moehringer’s The Tender Bar and the classic reportage of Joseph Mitchell, here is an indelible portrait of what is quite possibly the greatest bar in the world—and the mercurial, magnificent man behind it. The first time he saw Sunny’s Bar, in 1995, Tim Sultan was lost, thirsty for a drink, and intrigued by the single bar sign among the forlorn warehouses lining the Brooklyn waterfront.
-
-
Visiting an Era
- By Carolyn on 03-01-16
By: Tim Sultan
-
Bright Lights, Big City
- By: Jay McInerney
- Narrated by: Daniel Passer
- Length: 5 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The tragicomedy of a young man in New York City, a writer, never named, who works as a fact-checker for a prestigious magazine. He struggles with the reality of his mother's death, alienation, and the seductive pull of drugs and a vibrant nightlife.
-
-
Curiously, mundanely real
- By Amber on 01-07-12
By: Jay McInerney
-
The Patriots
- A Novel
- By: Sana Krasikov
- Narrated by: Suzanne Toren, George Guidall
- Length: 22 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Florence Fein grows up in Brooklyn in the 1930s, in a family that is gaining a foothold in the middle class. At City College she becomes engaged politically with the left-leaning student groups, and eventually, in the midst of the Depression, she takes a job with a trade organization that has a position for her in Moscow. There, she falls in love with another expatriate American and has a son. Soon after, Florence is sent to a work camp and her son to an orphanage.
-
-
Point of View of characters, past and present collide
- By Angela Adams on 01-29-19
By: Sana Krasikov
-
Mildred Pierce
- By: James M. Cain
- Narrated by: Christine Williams
- Length: 10 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Mildred Pierce had gorgeous legs, a way with a skillet, and a bone-deep core of toughness and determination. She used those attributes to survive a divorce in 1940s America with two children and to claw her way out of poverty, becoming a successful businesswoman. But Mildred also had two weaknesses: a yen for shiftless men and an unreasoning devotion to her monstrous daughter.
-
-
Mildred -- you pierce my heart
- By P. Giorgio on 03-11-11
By: James M. Cain
-
Young Hearts Crying
- By: Richard Yates
- Narrated by: Marc Vietor
- Length: 12 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Yates movingly portrays a man and a woman from their courtship in the 1950s to their divorce in the '70s, chronicling their heartbreaking attempts to reach their highest ambitions. Michael Davenport dreams of being a poet after returning home from World War II, and at first he and his new wife, Lucy, enjoy their life together. But as the decades pass and the success of others creates a fear of failure in both Michael and Lucy, their once bright future gives way to a life of adultery and isolation.
By: Richard Yates
-
Rolling Nowhere
- Riding the Rails with America's Hoboes
- By: Ted Conover
- Narrated by: Ted Conover
- Length: 9 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Riding the rails, Ted Conover tasted the life of a tramp with companions like Pistol Pete, BB, and Sheba Sheila Sheils. From them he learned survival skills - how to "read" a freight train, scavenge for food and clothing, avoid the railroad "bulls." He was initiated into the customs of their unique, shadowy society - men and women bound together by a mutual bond of failure, camaraderie, and distrust.
-
-
Had potential, but fell short.
- By Evan on 01-06-12
By: Ted Conover
-
The Confessions of Al Capone
- By: Loren D. Estleman
- Narrated by: Luke Daniels
- Length: 19 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1944 Al Capone, the most notorious Mob boss in history, has already been released from prison. Though Capone is no longer the enormously powerful force who dominated Chicago’s underworld for years, he is still a thorn in the side of J. Edgar Hoover. The FBI chief knows that if he can somehow manage to get Capone to reveal details of crimes he and his Outfit committed, the Bureau has a good chance of nailing key members who now are active in the wartime black market.
-
-
Interesting story
- By Michael on 02-07-17
-
The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears
- By: Dinaw Mengestu
- Narrated by: Dion Graham
- Length: 6 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Ethiopian émigré Dinaw Mengestu is a skilled observer of people who offers a colorful debut work of fiction. Insightful and swiftly paced, this novel evokes past and present in the course of its compelling narrative. It's the `70s, and one D.C. neighborhood is undergoing big changes. In the mix is Ethiopian grocery owner Sepha Stephanos - a man with a complex past who fled his homeland after seeing his father brutalized by themilitary. He hopes for new prospects in D.C.'s gentrification process.
-
-
Great book, wonderful reader
- By Lisbeth on 11-22-11
By: Dinaw Mengestu
-
Strong Motion
- By: Jonathan Franzen
- Narrated by: Scott Aiello
- Length: 20 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Louis Holland arrives in Boston in a spring of ecological upheaval (a rash of earthquakes on the North Shore) and odd luck: the first one kills his grandmother. Louis tries to maintain his independence, but falls in love with a Harvard seismologist whose discoveries about the earthquakes' cause complicate everything.
-
-
Compelling Story, Ridiculous Narrator
- By DianeReads on 02-28-16
By: Jonathan Franzen
-
Property
- Stories Between Two Novellas
- By: Lionel Shriver
- Narrated by: Lionel Shriver
- Length: 14 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A striking new collection of ten short stories and two novellas that explores the idea of property in every meaning of the word, from the acclaimed New York Times best-selling author of the National Book Award finalist So Much for That and the international best seller We Need to Talk About Kevin.
-
-
Painful and drawn out
- By JR on 06-27-18
By: Lionel Shriver
-
Children Playing Before a Statue of Hercules (Unabridged Selections)
- By: Edited by David Sedaris
- Narrated by: David Sedaris, Mary-Louise Parker, Cherry Jones
- Length: 2 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Children Playing Before a Statue of Hercules is a collection of short stories, some classic, others impending, selected and introduced by David Sedaris.
-
-
Great stories but only 5 of 17 are included
- By Terri Kirk on 07-13-12
-
The One-in-a-Million Boy
- By: Monica Wood
- Narrated by: Chris Ciulla
- Length: 10 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
For years, guitarist Quinn Porter has been on the road, chasing gig after gig, largely absent to his twice-ex-wife Belle and their odd, Guinness records-obsessed son. When the boy dies suddenly, Quinn seeks forgiveness for his paternal shortcomings by completing the requirements for one of his son's unfinished Boy Scout badges. For seven Saturdays Quinn does yard work for Ona Vitkus, the spry 104-year-old Lithuanian immigrant the boy had visited weekly.
-
-
Loved it
- By Justin on 10-20-16
By: Monica Wood
-
Babbitt
- By: Sinclair Lewis
- Narrated by: David Colacci
- Length: 13 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this sardonic portrait of the up-and-coming middle class during the prosperous 1920s, Sinclair Lewis perfectly captures the sound, the feel, and the attitudes of the generation that created the cult of consumerism. With a sharp eye for detail and keen powers of observation, Lewis tracks successful realtor George Babbitt's daily struggles to rise to the top of his profession while maintaining his reputation as an upstanding family man.
-
-
Makes You Think
- By E. Pearson on 02-21-13
By: Sinclair Lewis
-
Babbitt
- By: Sinclair Lewis
- Narrated by: Grover Gardner
- Length: 11 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
On the surface, everything is all right with Babbitt’s world of the solid, successful businessman. But in reality, George F. Babbitt is a lonely, middle-aged man. He doesn’t understand his family, has an unsuccessful attempt at an affair, and is almost financially ruined when he dares to voice sympathy for some striking workers. Babbitt finds that his only safety lies deep in the fold of those who play it safe. He is a man who has added a new word to our language: a “Babbitt,” meaning someone who conforms unthinkingly, a sheep.
-
-
Jonathan Franzen, circa 1922
- By Joe Kraus on 04-09-16
By: Sinclair Lewis
-
No Promises in the Wind
- By: Irene Hunt
- Narrated by: Charlie Thurston
- Length: 5 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1932, Americans’ dreams were simple: a job, food to eat, a place to sleep, and shoes without holes. But for millions of people these simple needs were nothing more than dreams. When he was just 15 years old, Josh had to make his own way through a country of angry and frightened people. This is the story of his struggle to find a life for himself during those turbulent times.
-
-
So wonderful!
- By Patterson Family CEO on 03-31-18
By: Irene Hunt
-
Mislaid
- A Novel
- By: Nell Zink
- Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell
- Length: 8 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Stillwater College in Virginia, 1966. Freshman Peggy, an ingénue with literary pretensions, falls under the spell of Lee, a blue-blooded poet and professor, and they begin an ill-advised affair that results in an unplanned pregnancy and marriage. The couple are mismatched from the start - she's a lesbian, he's gay - but it takes a decade of emotional erosion before Peggy runs off with their three-year-old daughter, leaving their nine-year-old son behind.
-
-
Misbegotten, mishandled, misfired novel
- By Julie W. Capell on 02-07-16
By: Nell Zink
-
Peyton Place
- By: Grace Metalious
- Narrated by: Tim O'Connor
- Length: 16 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1956, when this novel was first published, communities all over New England snapped up copies to see if they were the town portrayed in the book. Peyton Place is the story of a repressive New England town known for its high standards of public morality, and the steamy sexual activities that take place behind its bedroom doors.
-
-
Best book I've read to date!
- By Crusader on 11-07-11
By: Grace Metalious
-
The Jew Store
- A Family Memoir
- By: Stella Suberman
- Narrated by: Donna Postel
- Length: 10 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1920, in small-town America, the ubiquitous dry goods store was usually owned by Jews and often referred to as "the Jew store". That's how Stella Suberman's father's store, Bronson's Low-Priced Store, in Concordia, Tennessee, was known locally. The Bronsons were the first Jews to ever live in that tiny town of one main street, one bank, one drugstore, one picture show, one feed and seed, one hardware, one barber shop, one beauty parlor, one blacksmith, and many Christian churches.
-
-
Wonderful
- By Susan simpson on 09-04-21
By: Stella Suberman