
Barkskins
A Novel
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Narrated by:
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Robert Petkoff
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By:
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Annie Proulx
About this listen
Now a television mini-series airing on National Geographic May 2020!
A Washington Post Best Book of the Year and a New York Times Notable Book from the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Shipping News and Brokeback Mountain comes the New York Times best-selling epic about the demise of the world’s forests.
“Barkskins is grand entertainment in the tradition of Dickens and Tolstoy…the crowning achievement of Annie Proulx’s distinguished career, but also perhaps the greatest environmental novel ever written.” (San Francisco Chronicle).
In the late 17th century, two young Frenchmen, René Sel and Charles Duquet, arrive in New France. Bound to a feudal lord for three years in exchange for land, they become wood-cutters — barkskins. René suffers extraordinary hardship, oppressed by the forest he is charged with clearing. He is forced to marry a native woman and their descendants live trapped between two cultures. But Duquet runs away, becomes a fur trader, then sets up a timber business. Annie Proulx tells the stories of the descendants of Sel and Duquet over 300 years — their travels across North America, to Europe, China, and New Zealand — the revenge of rivals, accidents, pestilence, Indian attacks, and cultural annihilation. Over and over, they seize what they can of a presumed infinite resource, leaving the modern-day characters face to face with possible ecological collapse.
“A stunning, bracing, full-tilt ride through three hundred years of US and Canadian history…with the type of full-immersion plot that keeps you curled in your chair, reluctant to stop reading” (Elle), Barkskins showcases Proulx’s inimitable genius of creating characters who are so vivid that we follow them with fierce attention.
“This is Proulx at the height of her powers as an irreplaceable American voice” (Entertainment Weekly, Grade A), and Barkskins “is an awesome monument of a book” (The Washington Post) — “the masterpiece she was meant to write” (The Boston Globe).
As Anthony Doerr says, “This magnificent novel possesses the dark humor of The Shipping News and the social awareness of Brokeback Mountain."
PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.
Download the accompanying reference guide.©2016 Annie Proulx (P)2016 Simon & SchusterListeners also enjoyed...
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Bird Cloud
- A Memoir
- By: Annie Proulx
- Narrated by: Joan Allen
- Length: 7 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
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"Bird Cloud” is the name Annie Proulx gave to 640 acres of Wyoming wetlands and prairie and 400-foot cliffs plunging down to the North Platte River. On the day she first visited, a cloud in the shape of a bird hung in the evening sky. Proulx also saw pelicans, bald eagles, golden eagles, great blue herons, ravens, scores of bluebirds, harriers, kestrels, elk, deer and a dozen antelope
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Craft vs. History
- By Susan G. Drinker on 06-20-11
By: Annie Proulx
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Close Range
- Wyoming Stories (Selected Unabridged Stories)
- By: Annie Proulx
- Narrated by: Frances Fisher, Bruce Greenwood, Campbell Scott
- Length: 5 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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Annie Proulx's masterful language and fierce love of Wyoming are evident in this collection of stories about loneliness, quick violence, and wrong kinds of love. In "The Mud Below", a rodeo rider's obsession marks the deepening fissures between his family life and self-imposed isolation. In "The Half-Skinned Steer", an elderly fool drives west to the ranch he grew up on for his brother's funeral, and dies a mile from home.
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A Wonderfully Ironic and Surprising Read
- By Susan L. Stewart on 04-21-12
By: Annie Proulx
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The Shipping News
- By: Annie Proulx
- Narrated by: Robert Joy
- Length: 5 hrs and 8 mins
- Abridged
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Winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award, The Shipping News shows why E. Annie Proulx is recognized as a gifted and original writer. When Quoyle, a 36-year-old, third rate newspaperman, learns that his two-timing wife has abandoned him and their two daughters, he returns to his ancestral home on the Newfoundland coast, to rebuild his life. We also recommend Proulx's, Accordion Crimes.
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Find the unabridged version!
- By Karen on 05-28-07
By: Annie Proulx
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Accordion Crimes
- By: Annie Proulx
- Narrated by: Tom Stechschulte
- Length: 18 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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Accordion Crimes opens in 1890 in Sicily as an accordion maker completes his finest instrument and dreams of owning a music store in America. He and his 11-year-old son, carrying little more than the accordion, voyage to the teeming, violent port of New Orleans. Within a year, the accordion maker is murdered by an anti-Italian lynching mob, but his instrument carries Proulx's story as it falls into the hands of various immigrants who carry it from Iowa to Texas, from Maine to Louisiana, looking for a decent life.
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Just too depressing
- By Annette Grefe on 06-14-11
By: Annie Proulx
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Promised to the Crown
- Daughters of New France Series, Book 1
- By: Aimie K. Runyan
- Narrated by: Esther Wane
- Length: 11 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
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In her illuminating debut novel, Aimie K. Runyan masterfully blends fact and fiction to explore the founding of New France through the experiences of three young women, Rose, Nicole, and Elisabeth, who, in 1667, answer Louis XIV's call and journey to the Canadian colony. Known as the filles du roi, their duty is to marry and bring forth a new generation of loyal citizens. Despite their different backgrounds, all three women believe that marriage to a stranger is their best, perhaps only, chance of happiness.
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Disapointing
- By Simone on 08-05-18
By: Aimie K. Runyan
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Streets Of Laredo
- By: Larry McMurtry
- Narrated by: Daniel Von Bargen
- Length: 21 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
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The final book of Larry McMurtry's Lonesome Dove tetralogy is an exhilarating tale of legend and heroism. Captain Woodrow Call, August McCrae's old partner, is now a bounty hunter hired to track down a brutal young Mexican bandit. Riding with Call are an Eastern city slicker, a witless deputy, and one of the last members of the Hat Creek outfit, Pea Eye Parker, now married to Lorena -- once Gus McCrae's sweetheart. This long chase leads them across the last wild streches of the West....
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Terrible McMurtry Book - Depressing & Painful
- By Dennis on 01-28-11
By: Larry McMurtry
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Katherine
- A Novel
- By: Anya Seton
- Narrated by: Lorna Bennett
- Length: 29 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
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Set in the vibrant fourteenth century of Chaucer and the Black Death, the story features knights fighting in battle, serfs struggling in poverty, and the magnificent Plantagenets—Edward III, the Black Prince, and Richard II—who rule despotically over a court rotten with intrigue. Within this era of danger and romance, John of Gaunt, the king’s son, falls passionately in love with the already-married Katherine. Their affair persists through decades of war, adultery, murder, loneliness, and redemption.
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my favorite novel brought to life
- By Heather on 10-04-23
By: Anya Seton
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The Secret Chord
- A Novel
- By: Geraldine Brooks
- Narrated by: Paul Boehmer
- Length: 13 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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With more than two million copies of her novels sold, New York Times best-selling author Geraldine Brooks has achieved both popular and critical acclaim. Now, Brooks takes on one of literature's richest and most enigmatic figures: a man who shimmers between history and legend. Peeling away the myth to bring David to life in Second Iron Age Israel, Brooks traces the arc of his journey from obscurity to fame, from shepherd to soldier, from hero to traitor, from beloved king to murderous despot and into his remorseful and diminished dotage.
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Fictional Narrative of a great biblical character
- By Mildred Enriquez on 12-28-16
By: Geraldine Brooks
Man's arrogance and self-absorption
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History
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Fascinating Saga
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Real Americana
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A long, long story
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I had a difficult time keeping up with all of the blood lines that were introduced as the tale unfolded, but I understood enough to appreciate the author's writing skills.
The bottom line is that it was an informative and highly worthwhile read. I've already recommended this book to many of my friends. Barkskins is a meaningful precursor to the earth changes we're now experiencing, especially in America.
More than a novel
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Six stars to the excellenta reader. Hope to hear him again!
Thank you.
Birthe lundvik
A masterpiece.
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If you could sum up Barkskins in three words, what would they be?
Warm, concise, adventurousWhat did you like best about this story?
The description of the Indians - they're lives - their culture , their mysteriousnessHave you listened to any of Robert Petkoff’s other performances before? How does this one compare?
I have not heard other performances by him, but he is a phenomenal narrator - gifted with all the different accents!!Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?
BothGreat book!
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Immense and breathtaking
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Deep, darkly educational
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