Astray
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 $19.49
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
-
Narrated by:
-
Suzanne Toren
-
Dion Graham
-
Robert Petkoff
-
James Langton
-
Khristine Hvam
-
By:
-
Emma Donoghue
About this listen
The fascinating characters that roam in Emma Donoghue's stories have all gone astray: they are emigrants, runaways, drifters, lovers old and new. They are gold miners and counterfeiters, attorneys and slaves. They cross other borders too: those of race, law, sex, and sanity. They travel for love or money, incognito or under duress.
With rich historical detail, the celebrated author of Room takes us from puritan Massachusetts to revolutionary New Jersey, antebellum Louisiana to the Toronto highway, lighting up four centuries of wanderings that have profound echoes in the present. Astray offers us a surprising and moving history for restless times.
©2012 Emma Donoghue (P)2012 Hachette AudioListeners also enjoyed...
-
The Pull of the Stars
- A Novel
- By: Emma Donoghue
- Narrated by: Emma Lowe
- Length: 9 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In an Ireland doubly ravaged by war and disease, Nurse Julia Power works at an understaffed hospital in the city center, where expectant mothers who have come down with the terrible new flu are quarantined together. Into Julia's regimented world step two outsiders - Doctor Kathleen Lynn, a rumored Rebel on the run from the police, and a young volunteer helper, Bridie Sweeney. In the darkness and intensity of this tiny ward, over three days, these women change each other's lives in unexpected ways.
-
-
A compelling that relates to today’s times
- By Liana Murzak on 07-29-20
By: Emma Donoghue
-
The Wonder
- By: Emma Donoghue
- Narrated by: Tara Egan Langley
- Length: 9 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Now a Netflix film starring Florence Pugh: In this “old-school page turner” (Stephen King, New York Times Book Review) by the bestselling author of Room, an English nurse is brought to a small Irish village to observe what appears to be a miracle—a girl said to have survived without food for months—and soon finds herself fighting to save the child's life.
-
-
Excellent in Every Way
- By Erika on 03-12-23
By: Emma Donoghue
-
Homecoming
- By: Kate Morton
- Narrated by: Claire Foy
- Length: 17 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Adelaide Hills, Christmas Eve, 1959. At the end of a scorching hot day, a local deliveryman makes a terrible discovery. A police investigation is called, and the small town of Tambilla becomes embroiled in one of the most shocking and perplexing murder cases in the history of South Australia. Many years later and thousands of miles away, Jess is a journalist in search of a story. Having lived and worked in London for nearly two decades, she now finds herself laid off from her full-time job and struggling to make ends meet. Until a phone call out of nowhere summons her back to Sydney.
-
-
Loved the compelling audiobook version!
- By Melissas Bookshelf on 04-07-23
By: Kate Morton
-
The Exiles
- A Novel
- By: Christina Baker Kline
- Narrated by: Caroline Lee
- Length: 10 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Seduced by her employer’s son, Evangeline, a naïve young governess in early 19th-century London, is discharged when her pregnancy is discovered and sent to the notorious Newgate Prison. After months in the fetid, overcrowded jail, she learns she is sentenced to "the land beyond the seas", Van Diemen’s Land, a penal colony in Australia. Though uncertain of what awaits, Evangeline knows one thing: The child she carries will be born on the months-long voyage to this distant land.
-
-
Tragic
- By karis on 11-10-20
-
Haven
- By: Emma Donoghue
- Narrated by: Aidan Kelly
- Length: 8 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In seventh-century Ireland, a scholar and priest called Artt has a dream telling him to leave the sinful world behind. Taking two monks—young Trian and old Cormac—he rows down the river Shannon in search of an isolated spot on which to found a monastery. Drifting out into the Atlantic, the three men find an impossibly steep, bare island inhabited by tens of thousands of birds, and claim it for God. In such a place, what will survival mean?
-
-
so bored!
- By Kathryn Bierle on 10-29-22
By: Emma Donoghue
-
Beloved
- By: Toni Morrison
- Narrated by: Toni Morrison
- Length: 12 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Sethe was born a slave and escaped to Ohio, but eighteen years later she is still not free. Sethe has too many memories of Sweet Home, the beautiful farm where so many hideous things happened. And Sethe’s new home is haunted by the ghost of her baby, who died nameless and whose tombstone is engraved with a single word: Beloved.
-
-
Author-read Books
- By John R Williford on 07-14-06
By: Toni Morrison
-
The Pull of the Stars
- A Novel
- By: Emma Donoghue
- Narrated by: Emma Lowe
- Length: 9 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In an Ireland doubly ravaged by war and disease, Nurse Julia Power works at an understaffed hospital in the city center, where expectant mothers who have come down with the terrible new flu are quarantined together. Into Julia's regimented world step two outsiders - Doctor Kathleen Lynn, a rumored Rebel on the run from the police, and a young volunteer helper, Bridie Sweeney. In the darkness and intensity of this tiny ward, over three days, these women change each other's lives in unexpected ways.
-
-
A compelling that relates to today’s times
- By Liana Murzak on 07-29-20
By: Emma Donoghue
-
The Wonder
- By: Emma Donoghue
- Narrated by: Tara Egan Langley
- Length: 9 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Now a Netflix film starring Florence Pugh: In this “old-school page turner” (Stephen King, New York Times Book Review) by the bestselling author of Room, an English nurse is brought to a small Irish village to observe what appears to be a miracle—a girl said to have survived without food for months—and soon finds herself fighting to save the child's life.
-
-
Excellent in Every Way
- By Erika on 03-12-23
By: Emma Donoghue
-
Homecoming
- By: Kate Morton
- Narrated by: Claire Foy
- Length: 17 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Adelaide Hills, Christmas Eve, 1959. At the end of a scorching hot day, a local deliveryman makes a terrible discovery. A police investigation is called, and the small town of Tambilla becomes embroiled in one of the most shocking and perplexing murder cases in the history of South Australia. Many years later and thousands of miles away, Jess is a journalist in search of a story. Having lived and worked in London for nearly two decades, she now finds herself laid off from her full-time job and struggling to make ends meet. Until a phone call out of nowhere summons her back to Sydney.
-
-
Loved the compelling audiobook version!
- By Melissas Bookshelf on 04-07-23
By: Kate Morton
-
The Exiles
- A Novel
- By: Christina Baker Kline
- Narrated by: Caroline Lee
- Length: 10 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Seduced by her employer’s son, Evangeline, a naïve young governess in early 19th-century London, is discharged when her pregnancy is discovered and sent to the notorious Newgate Prison. After months in the fetid, overcrowded jail, she learns she is sentenced to "the land beyond the seas", Van Diemen’s Land, a penal colony in Australia. Though uncertain of what awaits, Evangeline knows one thing: The child she carries will be born on the months-long voyage to this distant land.
-
-
Tragic
- By karis on 11-10-20
-
Haven
- By: Emma Donoghue
- Narrated by: Aidan Kelly
- Length: 8 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In seventh-century Ireland, a scholar and priest called Artt has a dream telling him to leave the sinful world behind. Taking two monks—young Trian and old Cormac—he rows down the river Shannon in search of an isolated spot on which to found a monastery. Drifting out into the Atlantic, the three men find an impossibly steep, bare island inhabited by tens of thousands of birds, and claim it for God. In such a place, what will survival mean?
-
-
so bored!
- By Kathryn Bierle on 10-29-22
By: Emma Donoghue
-
Beloved
- By: Toni Morrison
- Narrated by: Toni Morrison
- Length: 12 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Sethe was born a slave and escaped to Ohio, but eighteen years later she is still not free. Sethe has too many memories of Sweet Home, the beautiful farm where so many hideous things happened. And Sethe’s new home is haunted by the ghost of her baby, who died nameless and whose tombstone is engraved with a single word: Beloved.
-
-
Author-read Books
- By John R Williford on 07-14-06
By: Toni Morrison
-
The Paying Guests
- By: Sarah Waters
- Narrated by: Juliet Stevenson
- Length: 21 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It is 1922, and London is tense. Ex-servicemen are disillusioned; the out-of-work and the hungry are demanding change. And in South London, in a genteel Camberwell villa, a large silent house now bereft of brothers, husband, and even servants, life is about to be transformed, as impoverished widow Mrs. Wray and her spinster daughter, Frances, are obliged to take in lodgers.
-
-
Difference of Opinion
- By Mel on 12-17-14
By: Sarah Waters
-
My Evil Mother
- A Short Story
- By: Margaret Atwood
- Narrated by: Hillary Huber
- Length: 57 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Life is hard enough for a teenage girl in 1950s suburbia without having a mother who may—or may not—be a witch. A single mother at that. Sure, she fits in with her starched dresses, string of pearls, and floral aprons. Then there are the hushed and mystical consultations with neighborhood women in distress. The unsavory, mysterious plants in the flower beds. The divined warning to steer clear of a boyfriend whose fate is certainly doomed.
-
-
Great easy read
- By Fundamental I. on 04-02-22
By: Margaret Atwood
-
Normal People
- A Novel
- By: Sally Rooney
- Narrated by: Aoife McMahon
- Length: 7 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Connell and Marianne grew up in the same small town, but the similarities end there. At school, Connell is popular and well liked, while Marianne is a loner. But when the two strike up a conversation - awkward but electrifying - something life changing begins. A year later, they’re both studying at Trinity College in Dublin. Marianne has found her feet in a new social world while Connell hangs at the sidelines, shy and uncertain. Throughout their years at university, Marianne and Connell circle one another.
-
-
Difficult, but Worth It
- By kdiz on 04-03-20
By: Sally Rooney
-
The Last Bookshop in London
- A Novel of World War II
- By: Madeline Martin
- Narrated by: Saskia Maarleveld
- Length: 8 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
August 1939: London is dismal under the weight of impending war with Germany as Hitler’s forces continue to sweep across Europe. Into this uncertain maelstrom steps Grace Bennett, young and ready for a fresh start in the bustling city streets she’s always dreamed of - and miles away from her troubled past in the countryside. With aspirations of working at a department store, Grace never imagined she’d wind up employed at Primrose Hill, an offbeat bookshop nestled in the heart of the city - after all, she’s never been much of a reader.
-
-
Very very seldom
- By Sherry Tritt Holton on 04-27-21
By: Madeline Martin
-
Gone with the Wind
- By: Margaret Mitchell
- Narrated by: Linda Stephens
- Length: 49 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Literature, Margaret Mitchell's great novel of the South is one of the most popular books ever written. Within six months of its publication in 1936, Gone With the Wind had sold a million copies. To date, it has been translated into 25 languages, and more than 28 million copies have been sold. Here are the characters that have become symbols of passion and desire....
-
-
not to miss audible experience
- By dallas on 12-08-09
-
The Alice Network
- A Novel
- By: Kate Quinn
- Narrated by: Saskia Maarleveld
- Length: 15 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the chaotic aftermath of World War II, American college girl Charlie St. Clair is pregnant, unmarried, and on the verge of being thrown out of her very proper family. She's also nursing a desperate hope that her beloved cousin Rose, who disappeared in Nazi-occupied France during the war, might still be alive.
-
-
We are standing on the shoulders of giants...
- By Marie on 02-25-18
By: Kate Quinn
-
The Invention of Wings
- A Novel
- By: Sue Monk Kidd
- Narrated by: Jenna Lamia, Adepero Oduye, Sue Monk Kidd
- Length: 13 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From the celebrated author of The Secret Life of Bees, a magnificent novel about two unforgettable American women. Writing at the height of her narrative and imaginative gifts, Sue Monk Kidd presents a masterpiece of hope, daring, the quest for freedom, and the desire to have a voice in the world - and it is now the newest Oprah’s Book Club 2.0 selection. Hetty “Handful” Grimke, an urban slave in early nineteenth century Charleston, yearns for life beyond the suffocating walls that enclose her within the wealthy Grimke household. The Grimke’s daughter, Sarah, has known from an early age she is meant to do something large in the world, but she is hemmed in by the limits imposed on women.
-
-
If it Weren't True, I Wouldn't Have Believed it
- By FanB14 on 03-04-14
By: Sue Monk Kidd
-
Cloud Atlas
- A Novel
- By: David Mitchell
- Narrated by: Scott Brick, Cassandra Campbell, Kim Mai Guest, and others
- Length: 19 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Cloud Atlas begins in 1850 with Adam Ewing, an American notary voyaging from the Chatham Isles to his home in California. Along the way, Ewing is befriended by a physician, Dr. Goose, who begins to treat him for a rare species of brain parasite.... Abruptly, the action jumps to Belgium in 1931, where Robert Frobisher, a disinherited bisexual composer, contrives his way into the household of an infirm maestro who has a beguiling wife and a nubile daughter....
-
-
thoroughly enjoyed
- By Elizabeth on 01-05-08
By: David Mitchell
-
Wicked
- The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West
- By: Gregory Maguire
- Narrated by: John McDonough
- Length: 19 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Heralded as an instant classic of fantasy literature, Maguire has written a wonderfully imaginative retelling of The Wizard of Oz told from the Wicked Witch's point of view. More than just a fairy tale for adults, Wicked is a meditation on the nature of good and evil.
-
-
It's not easy being green
- By PangaeaReads on 07-30-08
By: Gregory Maguire
-
Alias Grace
- By: Margaret Atwood
- Narrated by: Margaret Atwood, Sarah Gadon
- Length: 15 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It's 1843, and Grace Marks has been convicted for her involvement in the vicious murders of her employer and his housekeeper and mistress. Some believe Grace is innocent; others think her evil or insane. Now serving a life sentence, Grace claims to have no memory of the murders. An up-and-coming expert in the burgeoning field of mental illness is engaged by a group of reformers and spiritualists who seek a pardon for Grace. He listens to her story while bringing her closer and closer to the day she cannot remember.
-
-
Beautiful and Intense Story
- By Aparries on 11-27-17
By: Margaret Atwood
-
Rogues
- By: Neil Gaiman - contributor, George R. R. Martin - editor, Gillian Flynn - contributor, and others
- Narrated by: Janis Ian, Gwendoline Christie, Roy Dotrice, and others
- Length: 31 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
If you’re a fan of fiction that is more than just black and white, this latest story collection from number-one New York Times best-selling author George R. R. Martin and award-winning editor Gardner Dozois is filled with subtle shades of gray. Twenty-one all-original stories, by an all-star list of contributors, will delight and astonish you in equal measure with their cunning twists and dazzling reversals. And George R. R. Martin himself offers a brand-new A Game of Thrones tale chronicling one of the biggest rogues in the entire history of Ice and Fire.
-
-
A fun way to sample Authors- More Rothfuss Please!
- By gc on 08-31-14
By: Neil Gaiman - contributor, and others
-
Hidden Places
- By: Lynn Austin
- Narrated by: Ruth Ann Phimister
- Length: 15 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Fragrant blossoms herald spring, but the orchard is also a place of secrets and heartache. After the death of her husband Frank, Eliza is left with three young children and mounting debts. When a gentle stranger enters her orchard, she experiences a peculiar sensation of familiarity with the man. But will his unknown past jeopardize all that she has fought for?
-
-
Austin is Wonderful
- By Karen on 06-24-07
By: Lynn Austin
Critic reviews
"From England, Canada and the United States, Donoghue has created a restless world of travelers, finders and seekers, as well as a book that is an interactive narrative hybrid, one that gets us lost in other lives, that probes our history, that reveals the artist behind the word and that ultimately shows us something fresh, unsettling and enduring about ourselves."—Caroline Leavitt, The San Francisco Chronicle
Related to this topic
-
Steampunk! An Anthology of Fantastically Rich and Strange Stories
- By: Kelly Link - editor, Gavin J. Grant - editor
- Narrated by: Sarah Coomes, Nico Evers-Swindell, Shannon McManus, and others
- Length: 12 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Imagine an alternate universe where romance and technology reign. Where tinkerers and dreamers craft and recraft a world of automatons, ornate clockworks, calculating machines, and other marvels that. Where scientists and schoolgirls, fair folk and Romans, intergalactic bandits, and intrepid orphans - decked out in corsets, clockwerk suits, and tall black boots - solve dastardly crimes, escape from monstrous predicaments, consult oracles, and hover over volcanoes in steam-powered airships.
-
-
MMMM, Orca Bacon
- By Jim "The Impatient" on 09-14-13
By: Kelly Link - editor, and others
-
Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All
- By: Allan Gurganus
- Narrated by: Barbara McCulloh
- Length: 49 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Allan Gurganus's Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All became an instant classic upon its publication. Critics and fans alike fell in love with the voice of 99-year-old Confederate widow Lucy Marsden, one of the most entertaining and loquacious heroines in American literature. Lucy married at the turn of the 20th century, when she was 15 and her husband was 50. If Colonel William Marsden was a veteran of the "War for Southern Independence", Lucy became a "veteran of the veteran" with a unique perspective on Southern history and Southern manhood.
-
-
Dated.
- By edie butler on 04-06-21
By: Allan Gurganus
-
The Bastard
- The Kent Family Chronicles, Book 1
- By: John Jakes
- Narrated by: Marc Vietor
- Length: 19 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Set against the colorful tumult of events that gave rise to our fledgling nation, this novel of romance and adventure introduces Phillipe Charboneau. The illegitimate son of an English nobleman, Phillipe flees Europe and, as Philip Kent, joins the men who set our course for freedom. The Bastard is the first volume in the Kent Family Chronicles, a series of novels that details one family's journey in the early years of the American nation.
-
-
An Amazing Tale
- By will on 11-06-13
By: John Jakes
-
A Spear of Summer Grass
- By: Deanna Raybourn
- Narrated by: Nicola Barber
- Length: 11 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The daughter of a scandalous mother, Delilah Drummond is already notorious, even among Paris society. But her latest scandal is big enough to make even her oft-married mother blanch. Delilah is exiled to Kenya and her favorite stepfather's savanna manor house until gossip subsides. Fairlight is the crumbling, sun-bleached skeleton of a faded African dream, a world where dissolute expats are bolstered by gin and jazz records, cigarettes and safaris. As mistress of this wasted estate, Delilah falls into the decadent pleasures of society.
-
-
Disappointed
- By Vinity on 07-13-13
By: Deanna Raybourn
-
Gone with the Wind
- By: Margaret Mitchell
- Narrated by: Linda Stephens
- Length: 49 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Literature, Margaret Mitchell's great novel of the South is one of the most popular books ever written. Within six months of its publication in 1936, Gone With the Wind had sold a million copies. To date, it has been translated into 25 languages, and more than 28 million copies have been sold. Here are the characters that have become symbols of passion and desire....
-
-
not to miss audible experience
- By dallas on 12-08-09
-
Tess of the Road
- By: Rachel Hartman
- Narrated by: Katharine Lee McEwan
- Length: 16 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the medieval kingdom of Goredd, women are expected to be ladies, men are their protectors, and dragons can be whomever they choose. Tess is none of these things. Tess is...different. She speaks out of turn, has wild ideas, and can't seem to keep out of trouble. Then Tess goes too far. Tess's family decide the only path for her is a nunnery. But on the day she is to join the nuns, Tess chooses a different path for herself. She cuts her hair, pulls on her boots, and sets out on a journey. She's not running away, she's running towards something.
-
-
Beautiful and Boring, Both.
- By Ryan on 04-05-19
By: Rachel Hartman
-
Steampunk! An Anthology of Fantastically Rich and Strange Stories
- By: Kelly Link - editor, Gavin J. Grant - editor
- Narrated by: Sarah Coomes, Nico Evers-Swindell, Shannon McManus, and others
- Length: 12 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Imagine an alternate universe where romance and technology reign. Where tinkerers and dreamers craft and recraft a world of automatons, ornate clockworks, calculating machines, and other marvels that. Where scientists and schoolgirls, fair folk and Romans, intergalactic bandits, and intrepid orphans - decked out in corsets, clockwerk suits, and tall black boots - solve dastardly crimes, escape from monstrous predicaments, consult oracles, and hover over volcanoes in steam-powered airships.
-
-
MMMM, Orca Bacon
- By Jim "The Impatient" on 09-14-13
By: Kelly Link - editor, and others
-
Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All
- By: Allan Gurganus
- Narrated by: Barbara McCulloh
- Length: 49 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Allan Gurganus's Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All became an instant classic upon its publication. Critics and fans alike fell in love with the voice of 99-year-old Confederate widow Lucy Marsden, one of the most entertaining and loquacious heroines in American literature. Lucy married at the turn of the 20th century, when she was 15 and her husband was 50. If Colonel William Marsden was a veteran of the "War for Southern Independence", Lucy became a "veteran of the veteran" with a unique perspective on Southern history and Southern manhood.
-
-
Dated.
- By edie butler on 04-06-21
By: Allan Gurganus
-
The Bastard
- The Kent Family Chronicles, Book 1
- By: John Jakes
- Narrated by: Marc Vietor
- Length: 19 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Set against the colorful tumult of events that gave rise to our fledgling nation, this novel of romance and adventure introduces Phillipe Charboneau. The illegitimate son of an English nobleman, Phillipe flees Europe and, as Philip Kent, joins the men who set our course for freedom. The Bastard is the first volume in the Kent Family Chronicles, a series of novels that details one family's journey in the early years of the American nation.
-
-
An Amazing Tale
- By will on 11-06-13
By: John Jakes
-
A Spear of Summer Grass
- By: Deanna Raybourn
- Narrated by: Nicola Barber
- Length: 11 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The daughter of a scandalous mother, Delilah Drummond is already notorious, even among Paris society. But her latest scandal is big enough to make even her oft-married mother blanch. Delilah is exiled to Kenya and her favorite stepfather's savanna manor house until gossip subsides. Fairlight is the crumbling, sun-bleached skeleton of a faded African dream, a world where dissolute expats are bolstered by gin and jazz records, cigarettes and safaris. As mistress of this wasted estate, Delilah falls into the decadent pleasures of society.
-
-
Disappointed
- By Vinity on 07-13-13
By: Deanna Raybourn
-
Gone with the Wind
- By: Margaret Mitchell
- Narrated by: Linda Stephens
- Length: 49 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Literature, Margaret Mitchell's great novel of the South is one of the most popular books ever written. Within six months of its publication in 1936, Gone With the Wind had sold a million copies. To date, it has been translated into 25 languages, and more than 28 million copies have been sold. Here are the characters that have become symbols of passion and desire....
-
-
not to miss audible experience
- By dallas on 12-08-09
-
Tess of the Road
- By: Rachel Hartman
- Narrated by: Katharine Lee McEwan
- Length: 16 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the medieval kingdom of Goredd, women are expected to be ladies, men are their protectors, and dragons can be whomever they choose. Tess is none of these things. Tess is...different. She speaks out of turn, has wild ideas, and can't seem to keep out of trouble. Then Tess goes too far. Tess's family decide the only path for her is a nunnery. But on the day she is to join the nuns, Tess chooses a different path for herself. She cuts her hair, pulls on her boots, and sets out on a journey. She's not running away, she's running towards something.
-
-
Beautiful and Boring, Both.
- By Ryan on 04-05-19
By: Rachel Hartman
-
Wicked
- The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West
- By: Gregory Maguire
- Narrated by: John McDonough
- Length: 19 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Heralded as an instant classic of fantasy literature, Maguire has written a wonderfully imaginative retelling of The Wizard of Oz told from the Wicked Witch's point of view. More than just a fairy tale for adults, Wicked is a meditation on the nature of good and evil.
-
-
It's not easy being green
- By PangaeaReads on 07-30-08
By: Gregory Maguire
-
Varina
- A Novel
- By: Charles Frazier
- Narrated by: Molly Parker
- Length: 12 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
With her marriage prospects limited, teenage Varina Howell agrees to wed the much-older widower Jefferson Davis, with whom she expects a life of security as a landowner. He instead pursues a career in politics and is eventually appointed president of the Confederacy, placing Varina at the white-hot center of one of the darkest moments in American history - culpable regardless of her intentions. The Confederacy falling, her marriage in tatters, and the country divided, Varina and her children escape Richmond and travel south on their own, now fugitives.
-
-
Read it rather than listen
- By Anonymous on 08-31-18
By: Charles Frazier
-
The Plague of Doves
- By: Louise Erdrich
- Narrated by: Peter Francis James, Kathleen McInerney
- Length: 11 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The unsolved murder of a farm family haunts the small, white, off-reservation town of Pluto, North Dakota. The vengeance exacted for this crime and the subsequent distortions of truth transform the lives of Ojibwe living on the nearby reservation and shape the passions of both communities for the next generation.
-
-
Avoid this Plague
- By Andre on 05-16-08
By: Louise Erdrich
-
Rhett Butler's People
- By: Donald McCaig
- Narrated by: John Bedford Lloyd
- Length: 18 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The publication of Rhett Butler's People marks a major and historic cultural event. Through the storytelling mastery of award-winning writer Donald McCaig, the life and times of the dashing Rhett Butler unfolds. Through Rhett's eyes we meet the people who shaped his larger than life personality as it sprang from Margaret Mitchell: Langston Butler, Rhett's unyielding father; Rosemary his steadfast sister; Tunis Bonneau, Rhett's best friend and a onetime slave; Belle Watling, the woman for whom Rhett cared long before he met Scarlett O'Hara at Twelve Oaks Plantation, on the fateful eve of the Civil War.
-
-
Unconvincing
- By FMS on 04-10-19
By: Donald McCaig
-
The Blind Assassin
- By: Margaret Atwood
- Narrated by: Margot Dionne
- Length: 18 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
For the past twenty-five years, Margaret Atwood has written works of striking originality and imagination. In The Blind Assassin, she stretches the limits of her accomplishments as never before, creating a novel that is entertaining and profoundly serious. The novel opens with these simple, resonant words: "Ten days after the war ended, my sister drove a car off the bridge." They are spoken by Iris, whose terse account of her sister Laura's death in 1945 is followed by an inquest report proclaiming the death accidental.
-
-
Good book, TERRIBLE audio!
- By Whitney on 04-27-09
By: Margaret Atwood
-
The Pale Blue Eye
- By: Louis Bayard
- Narrated by: Charles Leggett
- Length: 15 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When the body of a suicide victim disappears at West Point Military Academy in 1831, only to be discovered hours later missing its heart, the Academy calls on retired detective Gus Landor to investigate. Landor is something of a legend among his peers, noted for an uncanny, Holmesian ability to read people. When Edgar Allan Poe, a new cadet, comes forth with his own cryptic conclusion—that the man Landor is looking for is a poet—Landor is intrigued and enlists Poe as his assistant.
-
-
Could not get through it
- By Amazon Customer on 10-25-15
By: Louis Bayard
-
Andersonville
- By: MacKinlay Kantor
- Narrated by: Grover Gardner
- Length: 37 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Acclaimed as the greatest novel ever written about the War Between the States, this searing Pulitzer Prize-winning book captures all the glory and shame of America's most tragic conflict in the vivid, crowded world of Andersonville, and the people who lived outside its barricades. Based on the author's extensive research and nearly 25 years in the making, MacKinlay Kantor's best-selling masterwork tells the heartbreaking story of the notorious Georgia prison where 50,000 Northern soldiers suffered.
-
-
Worthy of the Pulitzer
- By Gillian on 03-22-15
By: MacKinlay Kantor
-
Mudbound
- By: Hillary Jordan
- Narrated by: Ezra Knight, Kate Forbes, Joseph Collins, and others
- Length: 9 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Hillary Jordan's mesmerizing debut novel won the Bellwether Prize for fiction. A powerful piece of Southern literature, Mudbound takes on prejudice in its myriad forms on a Mississippi Delta farm in 1946. City girl Laura McAllen attempts to raise her family despite questionable decisions made by her husband. Tensions continue to rise when her brother-in-law and the son of a family of sharecroppers both return from WWII as changed men bearing the scars of combat.
-
-
May this South never rise again.
- By Betty on 03-25-12
By: Hillary Jordan
-
A Change of Climate
- A Novel
- By: Hilary Mantel
- Narrated by: Sandra Duncan
- Length: 12 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Ralph and Anna Eldred are an exemplary couple, devoting themselves to doing good. 30 years ago as missionaries in Africa, the worst that could happen did. Shattered by their encounter with inexplicable evil, they returned to England, never to speak of it again. But when Ralph falls into an affair, Anna finds no forgiveness in her heart, and 30 years of repressed rage and grief explode, destroying not only a marriage but also their love, their faith, and everything they thought they were.
-
-
Beautifully written
- By Patricia S. on 10-11-15
By: Hilary Mantel
-
Winter Collection
- Six Historical Short Stories (A Timeless Romance Anthology, Book 1)
- By: Sarah M. Eden, Heidi Ashworth, Annette Lyon, and others
- Narrated by: Karen Peakes
- Length: 8 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Six award-winning authors have contributed brand new stories to A Timeless Romance Anthology: Winter Collection. A collection unlike any other, listeners will love this compilation of six sweet historical romance novellas, set in varying eras, yet all with one thing in common: Romance.
-
-
Winter
- By Manila J. Dobbs on 08-12-23
By: Sarah M. Eden, and others
-
Mr. Fox
- A Novel
- By: Helen Oyeyemi
- Narrated by: Carol Boyd
- Length: 8 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Fairy-tale romances end with a wedding and the fairy tales don't get complicated. In this book, celebrated writer Mr. Fox can't stop himself from killing off the heroines of his novels, and neither can his wife, Daphne. It's not until Mary, his muse, comes to life and transforms him from author into subject that his story begins to unfold differently....
-
-
A Great Novel, just Poor for Audio
- By James A. Dittes on 08-13-16
By: Helen Oyeyemi
-
Beyond the Pale
- By: Elana Dykewomon
- Narrated by: Elana Dykewomon
- Length: 15 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Beyond the Pale - winner of the Lambda Literary Award - tells the stories of two Jewish women living through times of darkness and inhumanity in the early 20th century, capturing their undaunted love and courage in luminous and moving prose. The richly textured novel details Gutke Gurvich's odyssey from her apprenticeship as a midwife in a Russian shtetl to her work in the suffrage movement in New York.
-
-
great historical fiction with a lesbian twist
- By Kelly on 11-25-13
By: Elana Dykewomon
What listeners say about Astray
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Doug
- 12-10-12
Great use of historical fiction
This is a fine and unique collection of historical fiction pieces, with a postscript behind each story explaining the origin of the characters and the situation.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
8 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Jami
- 11-16-16
Excellent Collection of Short Stories
This was an interesting collection of short stories; the author took real life historical events (or snippets of something that she happened to read) and developed fictional stories to bring the characters and situations to life. I enjoyed the stories and the glimpse into the lives of those that lived in the 1800s and early 1900s. This collection was unique, because after each story, there was a blurb as to what inspired the story and in some cases, what happened to the characters. I thought this was very well done, and the various narrators brought the characters to life.
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
- Cariola
- 11-12-14
A Fine Collection
'Astray' is a fascinating and diverse collection of fourteen short stories/vignettes loosely based on snippets from letters, newspaper articles, footnotes, and other historical documents. Donoghue has taken these small pieces and used both her research and her imagination to flesh them out into complete characters and stories. They range across centuries (from the 17th to the 20th) and are set in various places (London, Texas, Ontario, Massachusetts, and more), and the main characters come from all walks of life: a young Hessian soldier in the Revolutionary war, an elephant keeper, two Gold Rush prospectors, a pair of female sculptors, a runaway slave, a prostitute, a young widowed mother unable to support her child--to name but a few. What they all have in common is that each has in some way taken a life journey that has gone astray, whether due to accident, ambition, corruption, madness, or the pinch of necessity. Each story is followed by a brief explanation of the document that inspired it and what Donoghue learned about the real-life characters' fates. I found two of the stories that were based on letters particularly moving. "Counting Down the Days" tells of a young Irish man who emigrated to Canada, leaving his wife and baby behind; now, at last, she is sailing to join him. In "The Gift," an impoverished young widow reluctantly gives her baby daughter into the care of a social services agency; they place her in a foster home and eventually facilitate her adoption. The story consists of letters written by the birth mother, who attempts to retrieve her lost daughter, and by her adoptive father.
'Astray' bears some similarities to Donoghue's earlier collection, 'The Woman Who Gave Birth to Rabbits,' but her skills as a writer have been finely tuned since 2002. While not all of the stories are equally strong, there is something admirable in each, and something here for everyone. Highly recommended.
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
- Joi Wilson
- 11-19-16
A gem!
I was thoroughly surprised at hoe amazing this book is. A great read. Try it.
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
- Jim "The Impatient"
- 11-22-14
CRAZY AS POPCORN ON A STOVE
TO THE IMPURE, ALL THINGS ARE IMPURE
Like most everyone else I listened to Room and loved it. Like I usually do I searched for another recording of Donoguhe, after listening to the CD. All books audible has by her have low ratings and not so good reviews. I have a promise to myself to not waste a credit on books with low ratings, so I ignored her for a time. Finally I took a chance on this collection of short stories. It is less then seven hours long and they are short stories, so my mental investment was not that long.
THE BRITISH ARE MORE SQUEAMISH ABOUT BEATING THEIR ANIMALS, THEN THEIR CHILDREN.
The very first story was Man and Boy. It was a story about an actual man in history and an actual elephant. I am an animal lover and this was a sort of love story between a man and an elephant. I also love historical fiction. This was a great story. All of these stories are based on something in history. Sometimes it was one line in a newspaper in which Emma draws a whole story. Sometimes it is a more in depth knowledge of the historical facts and sometimes it is totally made up, using the facts of the time, such as Snow Blind, which is about the Gold Rush. After each and every story you are told how she came up with the story, so you will know how much is fact and how much is fiction. At the end of the book is an Afterword, which explains the reason for the whole book and it's name Astray.
Emma also brings out some interesting events, which will surprise you. There are stories about gays, cross dressers, tough women, and one involving rape. In one story an adult woman does not find out till after her dad dies, that he was a woman. This is based on historical records. One story is about a man's struggle with his religion, sin and his own sexual desires. There are 14 stories and an afterword. I would give an A grade to four of the stories. I listen and read lots of short story collections and to have that many stories that I would rank that high is very rare. Several stories are average, but none of the stories are awful to listen to. I have found that I like ED's style of writing and regardless of the low ratings, I will take a chance on another of her books.
The narrators are excellent.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
18 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Robert
- 05-09-13
A good collection of short stories
I will just list the strengths of this collection of stories rather than an actual review
1) Emma Donoghue is a writter that manages to capture interesting literary themes in very accesible readable/page turning stories
2) The time and place of the stories are clearly set at the beginging so the reader is not spending time figuring what period a story is taking place
3) All/most of these stories are based on actual events. Donoghue is a real good researcher and historical writer
4) All the stories have a general theme of people leaving or finding a physical/mental place which ties the stories together well.
A definitie reccomendation
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
5 people found this helpful