
Appointment in Samarra
Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition
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Narrated by:
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Christian Camargo
About this listen
One of the great novels of small-town American life, Appointment in Samarra is John O'Hara's crowning achievement.
In December 1930, just before Christmas, the Gibbsville, Pennsylvania, social circuit is electrified with parties and dances. At the center of the social elite stand Julian and Caroline English. But in one rash moment born inside a highball glass, Julian breaks with polite society and begins a rapid descent toward self-destruction.
Brimming with wealth and privilege, jealousy and infidelity, O'Hara's iconic first novel is an unflinching look at the dark side of the American dream - and a lasting testament to the keen social intelligence of a major American writer.
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- Length: 12 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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Performance
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Story
Carson McCullers was all of 23 when she published her first novel, The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter. She became an overnight literary sensation, and soon such authors as Tennessee Williams were calling her "the greatest prose writer that the South [has] produced." The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter tells an unforgettable tale of moral isolation in a small southern mill town in the 1930s.
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Do yourself a favor
- By Barbara on 06-08-05
By: Carson McCullers
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Goodbye, Columbus
- And Five Short Stories
- By: Philip Roth
- Narrated by: Ramiz Monsef, Jonathan Davis, Robert Fass
- Length: 9 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Goodbye, Columbus is the story of Neil Klugman and pretty, spirited Brenda Patimkin. Neil comes from poor Newark, while Brenda is of suburban Short Hills. On one summer break, they meet and dive into an affair that is as much about social class and suspicion as it is about love. The novella is accompanied by five short stories that range in tone from the iconoclastic to the astonishingly tender.
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A masterpiece
- By marjorie on 10-12-24
By: Philip Roth
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Midnight's Children
- By: Salman Rushdie
- Narrated by: Lyndam Gregory
- Length: 24 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Salman Rushdie holds the literary world in awe with a jaw-dropping catalog of critically acclaimed novels that have made him one of the world's most celebrated authors. Winner of the prestigious Booker of Bookers, Midnight's Children tells the story of Saleem Sinai, born on the stroke of India's independence.
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Outstanding book, superb narration
- By MarcS on 06-09-09
By: Salman Rushdie
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Darkness at Noon
- By: Arthur Koestler
- Narrated by: Frank Muller
- Length: 8 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
A fictional portrayal of an aging revolutionary, this novel is a powerful commentary on the nightmare politics of the troubled 20th century. Born in Hungary in 1905, a defector from the Communist Party in 1938, and then arrested in both Spain and France for his political views, Arthur Koestler writes from a wealth of personal experience.
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Literature as the ‘living memory’ of nations
- By ESK on 01-23-13
By: Arthur Koestler
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Possession
- By: A. S. Byatt
- Narrated by: Virginia Leishman
- Length: 22 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
As a pair of young scholars research the lives of two Victorian poets, they uncover their letters, journals, and poems and track their movements from London to Yorkshire - from spiritualist seances to the fairy-haunted far west of Brittany. What emerges is an extraordinary counterpoint of passion and ideas.
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Absolutely Excellent
- By Loujujoe on 05-12-09
By: A. S. Byatt
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The Recognitions
- By: William Gaddis
- Narrated by: Nick Sullivan
- Length: 47 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Wyatt Gwyon's desire to forge is not driven by larceny but from love. Exactingly faithful to the spirit and letter of the Flemish masters, he produces uncannily accurate "originals" - pictures the painters themselves might have envied. In an age of counterfeit emotion and taste, the real and fake have become indistinguishable; yet Gwyon's forgeries reflect a truth that others cannot touch - cannot even recognize.
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Breathtaking, Dizzying, Stimulating, Funny
- By andrew on 11-17-10
By: William Gaddis
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Dog Soldiers
- By: Robert Stone
- Narrated by: Tom Stechschulte
- Length: 11 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
In Saigon during the waning days of the Vietnam War, a small-time journalist named John Converse thinks he'll find action - and profit - by getting involved in a big-time drug deal. But back in the States, things go horribly wrong for him. Dog Soldiers perfectly captures the underground mood of America in the 1970s, when amateur drug dealers and hippies encountered profiteering cops and professional killers - and the price of survival was dangerously high.
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intense narrative of a dark and complex time
- By gnudung on 05-05-12
By: Robert Stone
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Prophet Song
- By: Paul Lynch
- Narrated by: Gerry O'Brien
- Length: 8 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
On a dark, wet evening in Dublin, scientist and mother of four Eilish Stack answers her front door to find the GNSB on her step. Two officers from Ireland’s newly formed secret police are here to interrogate her husband, a trade unionist. Ireland is falling apart. The country is in the grip of a government turning towards tyranny and when her husband disappears, Eilish finds herself caught within the nightmare logic of a society that is quickly unravelling.
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Painfully powerful Tale.
- By Tom on 01-30-24
By: Paul Lynch
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Angle of Repose
- By: Wallace Stegner
- Narrated by: Mark Bramhall
- Length: 22 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Story
Wallace Stegner's uniquely American classic centers on Lyman Ward, a noted historian who relates a fictionalized biography of his pioneer grandparents at a time when he has become estranged from his own family. Through a combination of research, memory, and exaggeration, Ward voices ideas concerning the relationship between history and the present, art and life, parents and children, and husbands and wives.
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The Quest for Balance
- By Mel on 01-24-13
By: Wallace Stegner
one of my favorite books from college
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Unexpected pleasure...
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Narrator is terrible
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It was ok.
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Not sure yet...
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Didn't think I'd like it
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excellent & a bit existentialist & Hemingway-esque
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Production: The reader was excellent and the effects were good.
Overall, I would recommend to buy but do not make it an urgent buy.
Appointment in Samarra
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A-1 read. I am reading all of his writing. Brilliant
I adore John O Hara
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Not up to my memory of O'Hara's work.
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