-
And the Hippos Were Boiled in Their Tanks
- Narrated by: Ray Porter
- Length: 4 hrs and 15 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 $9.32
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
Publisher's summary
The manuscript, named after a line from a news story about a fire at a circus, was rejected by publishers and confined to a filing cabinet for decades. Now, for the first time, this legendary collaboration between two of the 20th century's most influential writers is being released. Both a fascinating piece of American literary history and an engrossing, atmospheric novel, it brings to life a shocking murder at the dawn of the Beat Generation.
Listeners also enjoyed...
-
South of No North
- By: Charles Bukowski
- Narrated by: Christian Baskous
- Length: 6 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
South of No North is a collection of short stories written by Charles Bukowski that explore loneliness and struggles on the fringes of society.
-
-
Short Story Paradise
- By Dan_Man on 06-04-18
By: Charles Bukowski
-
The Dharma Bums
- By: Jack Kerouac
- Narrated by: Ethan Hawke
- Length: 7 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
First published in 1958, a year after On the Road put the Beat Generation on the map, The Dharma Bums stands as one of Jack Kerouac's most powerful and influential novels. The story focuses on two ebullient young Americans - mountaineer, poet, and Zen Buddhist Japhy Ryder, and Ray Smith, a zestful, innocent writer - whose quest for Truth leads them on a heroic odyssey, from marathon parties and poetry jam sessions in San Francisco's Bohemia to solitude and mountain climbing in the High Sierras.
-
-
Lyrical Rendition
- By Michael E on 04-28-20
By: Jack Kerouac
-
Big Sur
- By: Jack Kerouac, Aram Saroyan - foreword
- Narrated by: Ethan Hawke
- Length: 6 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this 1962 novel, Kerouac's alter ego, Jack Duluoz, overwhelmed by success and excess, gravitates back and forth between wild binges in San Francisco and an isolated cabin on the California coast where he attempts to renew his spirit and clear his head of madness and alcohol. Only nature seems to restore him to a sense of balance. In the words of Allen Ginsberg, Big Sur "reveals consciousness in all its syntactic elaboration, detailing the luminous emptiness of his own paranoiac confusion".
-
-
Astonishing Ethan Hawke Performance
- By L E Stewart on 11-10-20
By: Jack Kerouac, and others
-
On the Road
- 50th Anniversary Edition
- By: Jack Kerouac
- Narrated by: Will Patton
- Length: 11 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Few novels have had as profound an impact on American culture as On the Road. Pulsating with the rhythms of 1950s underground America, jazz, sex, illicit drugs, and the mystery and promise of the open road, Kerouac’s classic novel of freedom and longing defined what it meant to be “beat” and has inspired generations of writers, musicians, artists, poets, and seekers who cite their discovery of the book as the event that “set them free”.
-
-
My Favorite Narration and a Wonderful Book
- By Guillermo on 09-17-09
By: Jack Kerouac
-
Cities of the Red Night
- The Red Night Trilogy, Book 1
- By: William S. Burroughs
- Narrated by: Ray Porter
- Length: 9 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From one of the founders of the beat generation and the 1960s counterculture comes this opening novel of a series available now in audio for the first time. An opium addict is lost in the jungle; young men wage war against an empire of mutants; a handsome young pirate faces his execution; and the world's population is infected with a radioactive epidemic. These stories are woven together in a single tale of mayhem and chaos.
-
-
absolutely timeless. thank you Ray Porter!
- By Amazon Customer on 10-21-20
-
Desolation Peak
- Collected Writings
- By: Jack Kerouac, Charles Shuttleworth - editor
- Narrated by: Christian Rummel
- Length: 7 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the summer of 1956, Jack Kerouac hitchhiked from Mill Valley, California, to the North Cascades to spend two months serving as a fire lookout for the US Forest Service. Taking only the Diamond Sutra for reading material, he intended to spend his time in deep contemplation and to achieve enlightenment.
-
-
Kerouac at his most honest
- By MckyD’z on 12-01-22
By: Jack Kerouac, and others
-
South of No North
- By: Charles Bukowski
- Narrated by: Christian Baskous
- Length: 6 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
South of No North is a collection of short stories written by Charles Bukowski that explore loneliness and struggles on the fringes of society.
-
-
Short Story Paradise
- By Dan_Man on 06-04-18
By: Charles Bukowski
-
The Dharma Bums
- By: Jack Kerouac
- Narrated by: Ethan Hawke
- Length: 7 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
First published in 1958, a year after On the Road put the Beat Generation on the map, The Dharma Bums stands as one of Jack Kerouac's most powerful and influential novels. The story focuses on two ebullient young Americans - mountaineer, poet, and Zen Buddhist Japhy Ryder, and Ray Smith, a zestful, innocent writer - whose quest for Truth leads them on a heroic odyssey, from marathon parties and poetry jam sessions in San Francisco's Bohemia to solitude and mountain climbing in the High Sierras.
-
-
Lyrical Rendition
- By Michael E on 04-28-20
By: Jack Kerouac
-
Big Sur
- By: Jack Kerouac, Aram Saroyan - foreword
- Narrated by: Ethan Hawke
- Length: 6 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this 1962 novel, Kerouac's alter ego, Jack Duluoz, overwhelmed by success and excess, gravitates back and forth between wild binges in San Francisco and an isolated cabin on the California coast where he attempts to renew his spirit and clear his head of madness and alcohol. Only nature seems to restore him to a sense of balance. In the words of Allen Ginsberg, Big Sur "reveals consciousness in all its syntactic elaboration, detailing the luminous emptiness of his own paranoiac confusion".
-
-
Astonishing Ethan Hawke Performance
- By L E Stewart on 11-10-20
By: Jack Kerouac, and others
-
On the Road
- 50th Anniversary Edition
- By: Jack Kerouac
- Narrated by: Will Patton
- Length: 11 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Few novels have had as profound an impact on American culture as On the Road. Pulsating with the rhythms of 1950s underground America, jazz, sex, illicit drugs, and the mystery and promise of the open road, Kerouac’s classic novel of freedom and longing defined what it meant to be “beat” and has inspired generations of writers, musicians, artists, poets, and seekers who cite their discovery of the book as the event that “set them free”.
-
-
My Favorite Narration and a Wonderful Book
- By Guillermo on 09-17-09
By: Jack Kerouac
-
Cities of the Red Night
- The Red Night Trilogy, Book 1
- By: William S. Burroughs
- Narrated by: Ray Porter
- Length: 9 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From one of the founders of the beat generation and the 1960s counterculture comes this opening novel of a series available now in audio for the first time. An opium addict is lost in the jungle; young men wage war against an empire of mutants; a handsome young pirate faces his execution; and the world's population is infected with a radioactive epidemic. These stories are woven together in a single tale of mayhem and chaos.
-
-
absolutely timeless. thank you Ray Porter!
- By Amazon Customer on 10-21-20
-
Desolation Peak
- Collected Writings
- By: Jack Kerouac, Charles Shuttleworth - editor
- Narrated by: Christian Rummel
- Length: 7 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the summer of 1956, Jack Kerouac hitchhiked from Mill Valley, California, to the North Cascades to spend two months serving as a fire lookout for the US Forest Service. Taking only the Diamond Sutra for reading material, he intended to spend his time in deep contemplation and to achieve enlightenment.
-
-
Kerouac at his most honest
- By MckyD’z on 12-01-22
By: Jack Kerouac, and others
-
On the Road: The Original Scroll
- By: Jack Kerouac
- Narrated by: John Ventimiglia
- Length: 12 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Though Jack Kerouac began thinking about the novel that was to become On the Road as early as 1947, it was not until three weeks in April 1951, in an apartment on West 20th Street in Manhattan, that he wrote the first full draft that was satisfactory to him.
-
-
A Classic Brought to Life
- By Sil A. on 11-25-16
By: Jack Kerouac
-
Wake Up
- A Life of the Buddha
- By: Jack Kerouac
- Narrated by: Danny Campbell
- Length: 5 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Originally written in 1955 and now published for the first time in audiobook form, Wake Up is Kerouac's retelling of the life of Prince Siddartha Gotama, who as a young man abandoned his wealthy family and comfortable home for a lifelong searchfor Enlightenment. Distilled from a wide variety of canonical scriptures, Wake Up serves as both a penetrating account of the Buddha's life and a concise primer on the principal teachings of Buddhism.
-
-
I enjoyed Jacks biography of The Buddha
- By Joel on 07-10-23
By: Jack Kerouac
-
The Haunted Life
- And Other Writings
- By: Jack Kerouac
- Narrated by: Liev Schreiber, Luke Daniels
- Length: 4 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Jack Kerouac wrote The Haunted Life in 1944 when he was 22 years old and attending Columbia University. Originally intended as a three-part novel, only this first 20,000-word section was ever finished. Upon its completion, Kerouac promptly lost his only hand-written final draft in a New York taxi cab, remaining unknown to the public until its appearance at Christies about ten years ago. Kerouac’s family has now decided to share this manuscript with the world.
-
-
Liev Schreiber should read more
- By Asmarranda on 04-21-21
By: Jack Kerouac
-
Ham on Rye
- A Novel
- By: Charles Bukowski
- Narrated by: Christian Baskous
- Length: 7 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In what is widely hailed as the best of his many novels, Charles Bukowski details the long, lonely years of his own hardscrabble youth in the raw voice of alter ego Henry Chinaski. From a harrowingly cheerless childhood in Germany through acne-riddled high school years, and his adolescent discoveries of alcohol, women, and the Los Angeles Public Library's collection of D. H. Lawrence, Ham on Rye offers a crude, brutal, and savagely funny portrait of an outcast's coming-of-age during the desperate days of the Great Depression.
-
-
Men's version of Virginia Woolf
- By I Ate Your Pug For Lunch and It was Tasty on 12-09-13
By: Charles Bukowski
-
Factotum
- By: Charles Bukowski
- Narrated by: Christian Baskous
- Length: 5 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
One of Charles Bukowski's best, this beer-soaked, deliciously degenerate novel follows the wanderings of aspiring writer Henry Chinaski across World War II-era America. Deferred from military service, Chinaski travels from city to city, moving listlessly from one odd job to another, always needing money but never badly enough to keep a job. His day-to-day existence spirals into an endless litany of pathetic whores, sordid rooms, dreary embraces, and drunken brawls, as he makes his bitter, brilliant way from one drink to the next.
-
-
Enjoyable
- By I Ate Your Pug For Lunch and It was Tasty on 12-26-13
By: Charles Bukowski
-
The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test
- By: Tom Wolfe
- Narrated by: Luke Daniels
- Length: 13 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Tom Wolfe - one of the 20th century’s foremost voices in cultural criticism - went from local news reporter to international icon in 1968, with the publication of The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test. Now voiced with vivacity and vigor by Audible Hall of Fame narrator Luke Daniels, the non-fiction swan-dive delves into the world of hippies, hedonism, and everything in between.
-
-
Maybe it resonated with a different time and place
- By S. Phillips on 04-11-19
By: Tom Wolfe
-
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
- By: Hunter S. Thompson
- Narrated by: Ron McLarty
- Length: 6 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In Las Vegas to cover a motorcycle race, Raoul Duke (Thompson) and his attorney Dr. Gonzo (inspired by a friend of Thompson) are quickly diverted to search for the American dream. Their quest is fueled by nearly every drug imaginable and quickly becomes a surreal experience that blurs the line between reality and fantasy. But there is more to this hilarious tale than reckless behavior, for underneath the hallucinogenic facade is a stinging criticism of American greed and consumerism.
-
-
Ron McLarty?
- By Ryan T. Nichols on 07-03-08
-
The Rum Diary
- A Novel
- By: Hunter S. Thompson
- Narrated by: Christopher Lane
- Length: 6 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Begun in 1959 by a twenty-two-year-old Hunter S. Thompson, The Rum Diary is a brilliantly tangled love story of jealousy, treachery, and violent alcoholic lust in the Caribbean boomtown that was San Juan, Puerto Rico, in the late 1950s.
-
-
Either a Priest or a Fool
- By Darwin8u on 10-01-15
-
Post Office
- A Novel
- By: Charles Bukowski
- Narrated by: Christian Baskous
- Length: 4 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
"It began as a mistake." By middle age, Henry Chinaski has lost more than 12 years of his life to the U.S. Postal Service. In a world where his three true, bitter pleasures are women, booze, and racetrack betting, he somehow drags his hangover out of bed every dawn to lug waterlogged mailbags up mud-soaked mountains, outsmart vicious guard dogs, and pray to survive the day-to-day trials of sadistic bosses and certifiable coworkers.
-
-
Not his best, but still Bukowski
- By ibillinsly@gmail on 02-05-18
By: Charles Bukowski
-
Call Me Burroughs
- A Life
- By: Barry Miles
- Narrated by: Malcolm Hillgartner
- Length: 29 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In Call Me Burroughs, biographer and Beat historian Barry Miles presents the first full-length biography of Burroughs to be published in a quarter century - and the first one to chronicle the last decade of Burroughs's life and examine his long-term cultural legacy.
Written with the full support of the Burroughs estate and drawing from countless interviews with figures like Allen Ginsberg, Lucien Carr, and Burroughs himself, Call Me Burroughs is a rigorously researched biography that finally gets to the heart of its notoriously mercurial subject.
-
-
A Masterpiece Crime Novel
- By A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies. on 08-09-14
By: Barry Miles
-
The Evening and the Morning
- Kingsbridge, Book 4
- By: Ken Follett
- Narrated by: John Lee
- Length: 24 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It is 997 CE, the end of the Dark Ages. England is facing attacks from the Welsh in the west and the Vikings in the east. Those in power bend justice according to their will, regardless of ordinary people and often in conflict with the king. Without a clear rule of law, chaos reigns. In these turbulent times, three characters find their lives intertwined.
-
-
I was really waiting for this book!
- By Firebolt on 09-20-20
By: Ken Follett
-
The Handmaid's Tale
- By: Margaret Atwood
- Narrated by: Claire Danes
- Length: 11 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
After a staged terrorist attack kills the President and most of Congress, the government is deposed and taken over by the oppressive and all-controlling Republic of Gilead. Offred is a Handmaid serving in the household of the enigmatic Commander and his bitter wife. She can remember a time when she lived with her husband and daughter and had a job, before she lost even her own name.
-
-
My Top Pick for 2012
- By Em on 11-30-12
By: Margaret Atwood
Related to this topic
-
Factotum
- By: Charles Bukowski
- Narrated by: Christian Baskous
- Length: 5 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
One of Charles Bukowski's best, this beer-soaked, deliciously degenerate novel follows the wanderings of aspiring writer Henry Chinaski across World War II-era America. Deferred from military service, Chinaski travels from city to city, moving listlessly from one odd job to another, always needing money but never badly enough to keep a job. His day-to-day existence spirals into an endless litany of pathetic whores, sordid rooms, dreary embraces, and drunken brawls, as he makes his bitter, brilliant way from one drink to the next.
-
-
Enjoyable
- By I Ate Your Pug For Lunch and It was Tasty on 12-26-13
By: Charles Bukowski
-
The Last Detail
- A Novel
- By: Darryl Ponicsan
- Narrated by: Bronson Pinchot
- Length: 5 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Unlike other branches of the armed services, the Navy draws its police force from the ranks as temporary duty - Shore Patrol. In this funny, bawdy, moving audiobook set during the height of the Vietnam War, two career sailors in transit in Norfolk, Virginia - Billy "Bad-Ass" Buddusky and Mule Mulhall - are assigned to escort 18-year-old Larry Meadows from Norfolk to the brig in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, where he is to serve an eight-year sentence for petty theft. It's good duty, until the two old salts realize the injustice of the sentence and are oddly affected by the naive innocence of their young prisoner.
-
-
Surprising ending
- By bella on 09-11-20
By: Darryl Ponicsan
-
Quarry
- A Quarry Novel, Book 1
- By: Max Allan Collins
- Narrated by: Christopher Kipiniak
- Length: 7 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Quarry doesn't kill just anybody these days. He restricts himself to targeting other hitmen, availing his marked-for-death clients of two services: eliminating the killers sent after them, and finding out who hired them…and then removing that problem, as well. So far he's rid of the world of nobody who would be missed. But this time he finds himself zeroing in on the grieving family of a missing cheerleader. Does the hitman's hitman have the wrong quarry in his sights?
-
-
The great Max Allan Collins
- By Bradley Paul Valentine on 09-25-16
-
361
- A Hard Case Crime Novel
- By: Donald E. Westlake
- Narrated by: L. J. Ganser
- Length: 5 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The men in the tan-and-cream Chrysler came with guns blazing. When Ray Kelly woke up in the hospital, it was a month later, he was missing an eye, and his father was dead. Then things started to get bad. From the mind of the incomparable Donald E. Westlake comes a devastating story of betrayal and revenge, an exploration of the limits of family loyalty and how far a man will go when everything he loves is taken from him.
-
-
Numbers mean violence
- By Ryan on 03-23-21
-
The 42nd Parallel
- By: John Dos Passos
- Narrated by: David Drummond
- Length: 13 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This first entry in John Dos Passos's celebrated U.S.A. trilogy paints a grand picture of the United States at the dawn of the twentieth century.
-
-
Powerful document of an all-too-familiar past
- By Ryan on 06-01-13
By: John Dos Passos
-
Post Office
- A Novel
- By: Charles Bukowski
- Narrated by: Christian Baskous
- Length: 4 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
"It began as a mistake." By middle age, Henry Chinaski has lost more than 12 years of his life to the U.S. Postal Service. In a world where his three true, bitter pleasures are women, booze, and racetrack betting, he somehow drags his hangover out of bed every dawn to lug waterlogged mailbags up mud-soaked mountains, outsmart vicious guard dogs, and pray to survive the day-to-day trials of sadistic bosses and certifiable coworkers.
-
-
Not his best, but still Bukowski
- By ibillinsly@gmail on 02-05-18
By: Charles Bukowski
-
Factotum
- By: Charles Bukowski
- Narrated by: Christian Baskous
- Length: 5 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
One of Charles Bukowski's best, this beer-soaked, deliciously degenerate novel follows the wanderings of aspiring writer Henry Chinaski across World War II-era America. Deferred from military service, Chinaski travels from city to city, moving listlessly from one odd job to another, always needing money but never badly enough to keep a job. His day-to-day existence spirals into an endless litany of pathetic whores, sordid rooms, dreary embraces, and drunken brawls, as he makes his bitter, brilliant way from one drink to the next.
-
-
Enjoyable
- By I Ate Your Pug For Lunch and It was Tasty on 12-26-13
By: Charles Bukowski
-
The Last Detail
- A Novel
- By: Darryl Ponicsan
- Narrated by: Bronson Pinchot
- Length: 5 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Unlike other branches of the armed services, the Navy draws its police force from the ranks as temporary duty - Shore Patrol. In this funny, bawdy, moving audiobook set during the height of the Vietnam War, two career sailors in transit in Norfolk, Virginia - Billy "Bad-Ass" Buddusky and Mule Mulhall - are assigned to escort 18-year-old Larry Meadows from Norfolk to the brig in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, where he is to serve an eight-year sentence for petty theft. It's good duty, until the two old salts realize the injustice of the sentence and are oddly affected by the naive innocence of their young prisoner.
-
-
Surprising ending
- By bella on 09-11-20
By: Darryl Ponicsan
-
Quarry
- A Quarry Novel, Book 1
- By: Max Allan Collins
- Narrated by: Christopher Kipiniak
- Length: 7 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Quarry doesn't kill just anybody these days. He restricts himself to targeting other hitmen, availing his marked-for-death clients of two services: eliminating the killers sent after them, and finding out who hired them…and then removing that problem, as well. So far he's rid of the world of nobody who would be missed. But this time he finds himself zeroing in on the grieving family of a missing cheerleader. Does the hitman's hitman have the wrong quarry in his sights?
-
-
The great Max Allan Collins
- By Bradley Paul Valentine on 09-25-16
-
361
- A Hard Case Crime Novel
- By: Donald E. Westlake
- Narrated by: L. J. Ganser
- Length: 5 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The men in the tan-and-cream Chrysler came with guns blazing. When Ray Kelly woke up in the hospital, it was a month later, he was missing an eye, and his father was dead. Then things started to get bad. From the mind of the incomparable Donald E. Westlake comes a devastating story of betrayal and revenge, an exploration of the limits of family loyalty and how far a man will go when everything he loves is taken from him.
-
-
Numbers mean violence
- By Ryan on 03-23-21
-
The 42nd Parallel
- By: John Dos Passos
- Narrated by: David Drummond
- Length: 13 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This first entry in John Dos Passos's celebrated U.S.A. trilogy paints a grand picture of the United States at the dawn of the twentieth century.
-
-
Powerful document of an all-too-familiar past
- By Ryan on 06-01-13
By: John Dos Passos
-
Post Office
- A Novel
- By: Charles Bukowski
- Narrated by: Christian Baskous
- Length: 4 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
"It began as a mistake." By middle age, Henry Chinaski has lost more than 12 years of his life to the U.S. Postal Service. In a world where his three true, bitter pleasures are women, booze, and racetrack betting, he somehow drags his hangover out of bed every dawn to lug waterlogged mailbags up mud-soaked mountains, outsmart vicious guard dogs, and pray to survive the day-to-day trials of sadistic bosses and certifiable coworkers.
-
-
Not his best, but still Bukowski
- By ibillinsly@gmail on 02-05-18
By: Charles Bukowski
-
The Rum Diary
- A Novel
- By: Hunter S. Thompson
- Narrated by: Christopher Lane
- Length: 6 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Begun in 1959 by a twenty-two-year-old Hunter S. Thompson, The Rum Diary is a brilliantly tangled love story of jealousy, treachery, and violent alcoholic lust in the Caribbean boomtown that was San Juan, Puerto Rico, in the late 1950s.
-
-
Either a Priest or a Fool
- By Darwin8u on 10-01-15
-
Night Life
- By: David C. Taylor
- Narrated by: Keith Szarabajka
- Length: 11 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
New York City, 1954. The Cold War is heating up, Senator Joe McCarthy is running a witch hunt for communists in America, the newly formed CIA is fighting a turf battle with the FBI to see who will be the primary United States intelligence agency, and the bodies of murdered young men are turning up all over the city.
-
-
terrific in every way
- By Martha on 04-12-16
By: David C. Taylor
-
After the First Death
- By: Lawrence Block
- Narrated by: Peter Berkrot
- Length: 5 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It was all too frighteningly familiar. For the second time in his life, Alex Penn wakes up in an alcoholic daze in a cheap hotel room off Times Square and finds himself lying next to the savagely mutilated body of a young woman. After the first death, he was convicted of murder and imprisoned, then released on a technicality. But this time he has to find out what happened during the blackout and why, before the police do.
By: Lawrence Block
-
Of Mice and Minestrone
- Hap and Leonard: The Early Years (Hap and Leonard)
- By: Kathleen Kent - introduction, Kasey Lansdale - contributor, Joe R. Lansdale
- Narrated by: JD Jackson
- Length: 5 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Hap Collins looks like a good ol’ boy. But even in his misspent youth, his best pal is Leonard Pine, who is Black, gay, and the ultimate outsider. Inseparable friends, Hap and Leonard climb into the boxing ring, visit their families, get in bar fights, and just go fishing - all the while confronting racists, righting wrongs, and eating a whole lot of delicious food.
-
-
Wringing every last drop
- By 🔥 Phx17 🔥 on 04-08-23
By: Kathleen Kent - introduction, and others
-
Dead Irish
- Dismas Hardy, Book 1
- By: John Lescroart
- Narrated by: David Colacci
- Length: 10 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In his new life as a bartender at the Little Shamrock, Dismas Hardy is just hoping for a little peace. He's left both the police force and his law career behind. Unfortunately it's not as easy to leave behind the memory of a shattering personal loss - but for the time being, he can always take the edge off with a stiff drink and a round of darts.
-
-
Soap-opera thrillers?
- By Snoodely on 01-27-10
By: John Lescroart
-
The Rabbit Factory
- By: Marshall Karp
- Narrated by: Tom Stechschulte, James Jenner
- Length: 14 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Marshall Karp is an acclaimed playwright known for his witty sense of humor and crackling dialogue. His debut novel The Rabbit Factory stars the irreverent LAPD detective duo of Mike Lomax and Terry Biggs. Dean Lamaar is the architect of an entertainment empire and the creator of iconic characters like Rambunctious Rabbit and McGreedy the Moose.
-
-
Bizarre but engaging mystery.1st-rate performance.
- By MidwestGeek on 12-19-12
By: Marshall Karp
-
Red Harvest
- By: Dashiell Hammett
- Narrated by: Richard Ferrone
- Length: 6 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When the last honest citizen of Poisonville was murdered, the Continental Op stayed on to punish the guilty--even if that meant taking on an entire town. Red Harvest is more than a superb crime novel: it is a classic exploration of corruption and violence in the American grain. From the author of The Maltese Falcon.
-
-
Great story, great narration, terrible reccording
- By yep on 08-21-14
By: Dashiell Hammett
-
The Sins of the Fathers
- By: Lawrence Block
- Narrated by: Alan Sklar
- Length: 5 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The hooker was young, pretty...and dead, butchered in a Greenwich Village apartment. The prime suspect, a minister's son, was also dead, the victim of a jailhouse suicide. The case is closed, as far as the NYPD is concerned. Now the murdered prostitute's father wants it opened again--that's where Matthew Scudder comes in.
-
-
Good introduction to a popular series
- By Sharron on 12-26-11
By: Lawrence Block
-
Dead Low Tide
- A Novel
- By: John D. MacDonald
- Narrated by: Stephen Hoye
- Length: 7 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A classic novel by John D. MacDonald with an exclusive introduction written and read by Dean Koontz. A college graduate and amateur fisherman, Andy McClintock is stuck toiling in the office of a construction company. But when Andy tries to quit, his boss offers him a promotion and a raise - and then promptly kills himself with a harpoon gun. At least, that's what it looks like, until the police rule it homicide - with the murder weapon belonging to Andy.
-
-
Clever plot twists
- By Laura Lehman on 06-12-19
-
From Here to Eternity
- By: James Jones
- Narrated by: Elijah Alexander
- Length: 36 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Diamond Head, Hawaii, 1941. Pvt. Robert E. Lee Prewitt is a champion welterweight and a fine bugler. But when he refuses to join the company's boxing team, he gets "the treatment" that may break him or kill him. First Sgt. Milton Anthony Warden knows how to soldier better than almost anyone, yet he's risking his career to have an affair with the commanding officer's wife. Both Warden and Prewitt are bound by a common bond: the Army is their heart and blood...and, possibly, their death.
-
-
Genius on Every Level
- By aaron on 06-13-13
By: James Jones
-
The Hunter
- By: Richard Stark
- Narrated by: John Chancer
- Length: 5 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
You probably haven't noticed them. But they've noticed you. They notice everything. That's their job. Sitting quietly in a nondescript car outside a bank making note of the tellers' work habits. Lagging a few car lengths behind the Brinks truck on its daily rounds. Surreptitiously jiggling the handle of an unmarked service door at the racetrack. They're heisters.
-
-
A dark story
- By Dave Nelson on 04-06-13
By: Richard Stark
-
Cat Chaser
- By: Elmore Leonard
- Narrated by: Frank Muller
- Length: 7 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The hero of Cat Chaser, George Moran, isn't looking for trouble but finds it anyway when he winds up in bed with the wife of a drug-dealing mob-connected Dominican cop - vicious, macho and ready to follow George to the ends of the earth, which in this case means Miami.
-
-
Elmore Leonard and Frank Muller: Unbeatable.
- By Richard Delman on 04-20-12
By: Elmore Leonard
People who viewed this also viewed...
-
The Soft Machine: The Restored Text
- The Nova Trilogy, Book 1
- By: William S. Burroughs
- Narrated by: Ramiz Monsef
- Length: 6 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In The Soft Machine, William S. Burroughs begins an adventure that will take us into the dark recesses of his imagination, a region where nothing is sacred, nothing taboo. Continuing his ferocious verbal assault on hatred, hype, poverty, war, bureaucracy, and addiction in all its forms, Burroughs gives us a surreal space odyssey through the wounded galaxies in a book only he could create.
-
-
Breathe in Johnny -- Here Goes --
- By Darwin8u on 02-13-17
-
Cities of the Red Night
- The Red Night Trilogy, Book 1
- By: William S. Burroughs
- Narrated by: Ray Porter
- Length: 9 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From one of the founders of the beat generation and the 1960s counterculture comes this opening novel of a series available now in audio for the first time. An opium addict is lost in the jungle; young men wage war against an empire of mutants; a handsome young pirate faces his execution; and the world's population is infected with a radioactive epidemic. These stories are woven together in a single tale of mayhem and chaos.
-
-
absolutely timeless. thank you Ray Porter!
- By Amazon Customer on 10-21-20
-
Naked Lunch
- The Restored Text
- By: William S. Burroughs
- Narrated by: Mark Bramhall
- Length: 10 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Naked Lunch is one of the most important novels of the 20th century, a book that redefined not just literature but American culture. An unnerving tale of a narcotics addict unmoored in New York, Tangiers, and, ultimately, a nightmarish wasteland known as Interzone.
-
-
Delightful rendition
- By csk on 10-11-12
-
The Dharma Bums
- By: Jack Kerouac
- Narrated by: Ethan Hawke
- Length: 7 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
First published in 1958, a year after On the Road put the Beat Generation on the map, The Dharma Bums stands as one of Jack Kerouac's most powerful and influential novels. The story focuses on two ebullient young Americans - mountaineer, poet, and Zen Buddhist Japhy Ryder, and Ray Smith, a zestful, innocent writer - whose quest for Truth leads them on a heroic odyssey, from marathon parties and poetry jam sessions in San Francisco's Bohemia to solitude and mountain climbing in the High Sierras.
-
-
Lyrical Rendition
- By Michael E on 04-28-20
By: Jack Kerouac
-
Exterminator!
- A Novel
- By: William S. Burroughs
- Narrated by: Richard Powers
- Length: 4 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Conspirators plot to explode a train carrying nerve gas. A perfect servant suddenly reveals himself to be the insidious Dr. Fu Manchu. Science-fantasy wars, racism, corporate capitalism, drug addiction, and various medical and psychiatric horrors all play their parts in this mosaic, experimental novel. Here is William S. Burroughs at his coruscating and hilarious best.
-
-
Not worth the time.
- By Mark Beasse on 02-21-22
-
Wake Up
- A Life of the Buddha
- By: Jack Kerouac
- Narrated by: Danny Campbell
- Length: 5 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Originally written in 1955 and now published for the first time in audiobook form, Wake Up is Kerouac's retelling of the life of Prince Siddartha Gotama, who as a young man abandoned his wealthy family and comfortable home for a lifelong searchfor Enlightenment. Distilled from a wide variety of canonical scriptures, Wake Up serves as both a penetrating account of the Buddha's life and a concise primer on the principal teachings of Buddhism.
-
-
I enjoyed Jacks biography of The Buddha
- By Joel on 07-10-23
By: Jack Kerouac
-
The Soft Machine: The Restored Text
- The Nova Trilogy, Book 1
- By: William S. Burroughs
- Narrated by: Ramiz Monsef
- Length: 6 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In The Soft Machine, William S. Burroughs begins an adventure that will take us into the dark recesses of his imagination, a region where nothing is sacred, nothing taboo. Continuing his ferocious verbal assault on hatred, hype, poverty, war, bureaucracy, and addiction in all its forms, Burroughs gives us a surreal space odyssey through the wounded galaxies in a book only he could create.
-
-
Breathe in Johnny -- Here Goes --
- By Darwin8u on 02-13-17
-
Cities of the Red Night
- The Red Night Trilogy, Book 1
- By: William S. Burroughs
- Narrated by: Ray Porter
- Length: 9 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From one of the founders of the beat generation and the 1960s counterculture comes this opening novel of a series available now in audio for the first time. An opium addict is lost in the jungle; young men wage war against an empire of mutants; a handsome young pirate faces his execution; and the world's population is infected with a radioactive epidemic. These stories are woven together in a single tale of mayhem and chaos.
-
-
absolutely timeless. thank you Ray Porter!
- By Amazon Customer on 10-21-20
-
Naked Lunch
- The Restored Text
- By: William S. Burroughs
- Narrated by: Mark Bramhall
- Length: 10 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Naked Lunch is one of the most important novels of the 20th century, a book that redefined not just literature but American culture. An unnerving tale of a narcotics addict unmoored in New York, Tangiers, and, ultimately, a nightmarish wasteland known as Interzone.
-
-
Delightful rendition
- By csk on 10-11-12
-
The Dharma Bums
- By: Jack Kerouac
- Narrated by: Ethan Hawke
- Length: 7 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
First published in 1958, a year after On the Road put the Beat Generation on the map, The Dharma Bums stands as one of Jack Kerouac's most powerful and influential novels. The story focuses on two ebullient young Americans - mountaineer, poet, and Zen Buddhist Japhy Ryder, and Ray Smith, a zestful, innocent writer - whose quest for Truth leads them on a heroic odyssey, from marathon parties and poetry jam sessions in San Francisco's Bohemia to solitude and mountain climbing in the High Sierras.
-
-
Lyrical Rendition
- By Michael E on 04-28-20
By: Jack Kerouac
-
Exterminator!
- A Novel
- By: William S. Burroughs
- Narrated by: Richard Powers
- Length: 4 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Conspirators plot to explode a train carrying nerve gas. A perfect servant suddenly reveals himself to be the insidious Dr. Fu Manchu. Science-fantasy wars, racism, corporate capitalism, drug addiction, and various medical and psychiatric horrors all play their parts in this mosaic, experimental novel. Here is William S. Burroughs at his coruscating and hilarious best.
-
-
Not worth the time.
- By Mark Beasse on 02-21-22
-
Wake Up
- A Life of the Buddha
- By: Jack Kerouac
- Narrated by: Danny Campbell
- Length: 5 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Originally written in 1955 and now published for the first time in audiobook form, Wake Up is Kerouac's retelling of the life of Prince Siddartha Gotama, who as a young man abandoned his wealthy family and comfortable home for a lifelong searchfor Enlightenment. Distilled from a wide variety of canonical scriptures, Wake Up serves as both a penetrating account of the Buddha's life and a concise primer on the principal teachings of Buddhism.
-
-
I enjoyed Jacks biography of The Buddha
- By Joel on 07-10-23
By: Jack Kerouac
What listeners say about And the Hippos Were Boiled in Their Tanks
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Ryan Jozwiak
- 12-19-21
Can't be Beat
An incredible narration by what can easily be identified as a quintessential piece of early work by Kerouac and Burroughs.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Allison
- 02-05-12
underrated!
If you could sum up And the Hippos Were Boiled in Their Tanks in three words, what would they be?
historical, shocking, honest
What did you like best about this story?
The movement between chapters made it impossible to stop listening.
What does Ray Porter bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?
I felt like I was listening to the authors telling their story.
Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?
YES!
Any additional comments?
Dare I say this may be my favorite Kerouac?
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
- Amazon Customer
- 01-01-21
Better To Read, Not Listen
Let me start off by saying the narration in this is fantastic. Porter does a great job throwing his voice to a multitude of different characters. However, I found the story’s structure hard to follow as an auditory piece. I was driving while listening so maybe it’s better off not being heard while multitasking. Either way, I felt as though I would have enjoyed this story better had I read it and not listened or read then listened.
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
- Jeffrey A. Pierce
- 08-20-09
Pre-Beat Lit, instant classic!
I was skeptic... lost book? Burroughs and Kerouac? Does the phrase "too good to be true" come to mind. Yet, to my delight, this could turn out to be one of my favorite pieces of midcentury counter-culture lit. Jack and William take turns with chapters, allowing a really neat multi-perspective view of the controversial plot. Ray does a great job reading, as usual. The epilogue is a great treat, the true story behind the novel.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
9 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Eddie Morra
- 02-25-22
Mostly harmless.
Don't these narrators realize they are PERFORMANCE ARTISTS? But at least with Burroughs you can rely on the depravity being way over the top. Just the way we like it.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Mr. Ess
- 08-30-15
Not a great story.
Put into the context of a biography written many years before the characters/authors of the Beat Generation, this story is interesting.
As a stand alone piece, the story is not very good.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
3 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Micky
- 04-07-24
My First Beat Generation Book
Intricate in its mundane nature, it was hard to feel when the plot was going to “happen.” But I love this as an introduction to the Beat Generation and look forward to reading more.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- George
- 08-29-20
Unexpected Gem
I had no idea this one existed. The telling of a true story were the names have been changed.
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
- Andy
- 10-26-22
Period piece: murder among beat writers pre-fame.
Not quite a murder mystery and not quite a beat era Slice of Life narrative but something in between. It's definitely a period piece about a group of writers and artists living in New York City at the end of World War II. It's a period piece Noir style narrative about a murder and it's also a story about a group of friends who know that something bad is bound to happen eventually between two of the people in their social circle. I would recommend this book to anyone who enjoys gritty slice of life stories, Noir stories, and anyone who may want to learn more about what life was like for the beat era writers before they found fame.
Based on actual events, this almost Noir fictionalized story has a kind of excitable madness holding the narrative together that is directly juxtaposed to the Darkness of the story. The subject matter is dark but the narrative is written in a rambling kind of exuberance that's characteristic of a lot of beat era literature to come.
Kerouac and Burroughs wrote this novel together by alternating chapters and they pursued publication a full decade before they would find Fame as literary Giants and leaders of the beat era. I really enjoyed that the first person perspective switched back and forth between the Burroughs character and the Kerouac character. There's definitely a slight stylistic change between the Kerouac chapters and the Burroughs chapters and Ray Porter does an excellent job as narrator changing his voice slightly to fit the unique tone of each author in their respective chapters.
I found the afterword of this novel to be very informative about beat history and appreciated the biographical info about the beat writers who directly influenced the story. This book has a long and complicated history leading to this publication so many decades after the events that inspired the story.
The only reason I gave the story 4 stars instead of 5 is because the ending feels so unfinished somehow. It's a great book because of all of the great writing that came after and you get a glimpse of how a terrible thing like a random murder in one's own circle of friends could greatly alter a would-be writer and their trajectory in life. I don't know if the story and the ending would feel as strong if this was the only book that either of them ever published. It's a tough story but worth it for anyone who wants to know about some of the history around the key writers of the beat era before they wrote their signature pieces.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Anonymous
- 01-19-23
Hidden drama with a bit of history
Based on a true story!! Reveal at the end. I recommend speed of 1.3-1.5 so it less stuffy.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!