
Blue Skies
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Narrated by:
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Alyssa Bresnahan
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By:
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T. C. Boyle
About this listen
From best-selling novelist T. C. Boyle, a satirical yet ultimately moving take on contemporary American life in the glare of climate change.
Denied a dog, a baby, and even a faithful boyfriend, Cat decides that she needs a snake: a glistening, writhing creature that can be worn like “jewelry, living jewelry.” But when the budding social influencer finally gives in to impulse, buying a Burmese python from a local pet shop, she sets in motion a chain of increasingly dire events that culminates in one of the most memorable denouements in recent fiction, one that ensnares her entire family, from her eco-obsessed parents, Ottilie and Frank, to her frat-boy-turned-husband, Todd.
But there’s more than meets the eye in this compulsive family drama. Lurking beneath the banal façade of twenty-first-century California and Florida is a caricature of materialist American society that doubles as a prophetic warning about our planet’s future.
An eco-thriller with teeth, Boyle’s Blue Skies is at once a tragicomic satire and a prescient novel that captures the absurdity and “inexpressible sadness at the heart of everything.”
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STORYTELLING AS CONSCIOUSNESS-RAISING
- By Christopher Meeks on 05-25-19
By: T. C. Boyle
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Gun Island
- A Novel
- By: Amitav Ghosh
- Narrated by: Sagar Arya
- Length: 10 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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Amitav Ghosh’s Gun Island is a beautifully realized novel that effortlessly spans space and time. It is the story of a world on the brink, of increasing displacement and unstoppable transition. But it is also a story of hope, of a man whose faith in the world and the future is restored by two remarkable women.
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Loved the story and the narrator
- By Frances on 10-10-19
By: Amitav Ghosh
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The Light Pirate
- By: Lily Brooks-Dalton
- Narrated by: Rosemary Benson
- Length: 11 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
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Florida is slipping away. As devastating weather patterns and rising sea levels wreak gradual havoc on the state’s infrastructure, a powerful hurricane approaches a small town on the southeastern coast. Kirby Lowe, an electrical line worker, his pregnant wife, Frida, and their two sons, Flip and Lucas, prepare for the worst. When the boys go missing just before the hurricane hits, Kirby heads out into the high winds in search of his children. Left alone, Frida goes into premature labor and gives birth to an unusual child, Wanda, whom she names after the catastrophic storm.
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Listed under "action adventure"????
- By NMwritergal on 12-14-22
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The Last Bookstore on Earth
- By: Lily Braun-Arnold
- Narrated by: Bailey Carr
- Length: 8 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
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The world is about to end. Again. Ever since the first Storm wreaked havoc on civilization as we know it, seventeen-year-old Liz Flannery has been holed up in an abandoned bookstore in suburban New Jersey where she used to work, trading books for supplies with the few remaining survivors. It’s the one place left that feels safe to her. Until she learns that another earth-shattering Storm is coming . . . and everything changes. Enter Maeve, a prickly and potentially dangerous out-of-towner who breaks into the bookstore looking for shelter one night.
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I like it.
- By Marj on 01-30-25
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The Tortilla Curtain
- By: T. C. Boyle
- Narrated by: T. C. Boyle
- Length: 11 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
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Topanga Canyon is home to two couples on a collision course. Los Angeles liberals Delaney and Kyra Mossbacker lead an ordered, sushi-and-recycling existence in a newly gated hilltop community: He is a sensitive nature writer, she an obsessive realtor. Mexican illegals Candido and America Rincon desperately cling to their vision of the American Dream as they fight off starvation in a makeshift camp deep in the ravine.
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What a talented author & narrator!
- By Julie on 09-13-06
By: T. C. Boyle
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The Bear
- By: Andrew Krivak
- Narrated by: Eric Jason Martin
- Length: 4 hrs
- Unabridged
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A girl and her father live close to the land in the shadow of a lone mountain. They possess a few remnants of civilization: some books, a pane of glass, a set of flint and steel, a comb. The father teaches the girl how to fish and hunt, the secrets of the seasons and the stars. He is preparing her for an adulthood in harmony with nature, for they are the last of humankind. But when the girl finds herself alone in an unknown landscape, it is a bear that will lead her back home through a vast wilderness that offers the greatest lessons of all, if she can only learn to listen.
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Interconnectedness of all life
- By Sherrie Brownell on 07-18-20
By: Andrew Krivak
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I Walk Between the Raindrops
- Stories
- By: T.C. Boyle
- Narrated by: T.C. Boyle, Cheryl Smith, Jason Culp, and others
- Length: 8 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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In the title story of Walk Between the Raindrops, a woman sits down next to a man at a bar and claims she has ESP. In “Thirteen Days,” passengers on a cruise line are quarantined, to horrifying and hilarious effect. And “Hyena” begins simply: “That was the day the hyena came for him, and never mind that there were no hyenas in the South of France, and especially not in Pont-Saint-Esprit—it was there and it came for him.”
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Unexpected short stories
- By Amazon Customer on 04-19-24
By: T.C. Boyle
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American War
- A Novel
- By: Omar El Akkad
- Narrated by: Dion Graham
- Length: 12 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
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Sarat Chestnut, born in Louisiana, is only six when the Second American Civil War breaks out in 2074. But even she knows that oil is outlawed, that Louisiana is half underwater, that unmanned drones fill the sky. And when her father is killed and her family is forced into Camp Patience for displaced persons, she quickly begins to be shaped by her particular time and place until, finally, through the influence of a mysterious functionary, she is turned into a deadly instrument of war.
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Best listen in years
- By odin on 04-08-17
By: Omar El Akkad
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How High We Go in the Dark
- A Novel
- By: Sequoia Nagamatsu
- Narrated by: Julia Whelan, Brian Nishii, Keisuke Hoashi, and others
- Length: 9 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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In 2030, a grieving archeologist arrives in the Arctic Circle to continue the work of his recently deceased daughter at the Batagaika Crater, where researchers are studying long-buried secrets now revealed in melting permafrost, including the perfectly preserved remains of a girl who appears to have died of an ancient virus. Once unleashed, the Arctic plague will reshape life on Earth for generations to come, quickly traversing the globe, forcing humanity to devise a myriad of moving and inventive ways to embrace possibility in the face of tragedy.
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Should come with a sadness warning
- By KJH on 03-16-22
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The Women
- A Novel
- By: T. C. Boyle
- Narrated by: Grover Gardner
- Length: 18 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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Told through the experiences of the four women who loved him, this imaginative account of Frank Lloyd Wright's raucous life blazes with Boyle's trademark wit and invention. Boyle's protean voice captures these very different women and, in doing so, creates a masterful ode to the creative life in all its complexity and grandeur.
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The Best of Boyle
- By Rebecarol on 06-13-09
By: T. C. Boyle
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Weather
- A Novel
- By: Jenny Offill
- Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell
- Length: 3 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
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Lizzie Benson slid into her job as a librarian without a traditional degree. But this gives her a vantage point from which to practice her other calling: she is a fake shrink. For years, she has tended to her God-haunted mother and her recovering addict brother. They have both stabilized for the moment, but Lizzie has little chance to spend her new free time with husband and son before her old mentor, Sylvia Liller, makes a proposal. She's become famous for her prescient podcast, Hell and High Water, and wants to hire Lizzie to answer the mail she receives.
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Read This Article Before Listening to Weather
- By MOR Denver on 04-28-20
By: Jenny Offill
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The Harder They Come
- A Novel
- By: T. C. Boyle
- Narrated by: Graham Hamilton
- Length: 12 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
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Set in contemporary Northern California, The Harder They Come explores the volatile connections between three damaged people - an aging ex-marine and Vietnam veteran, his psychologically unstable son, and the son's paranoid, much older lover - as they careen toward an explosive confrontation.
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Based on a true story
- By Sharon on 05-25-15
By: T. C. Boyle
What listeners say about Blue Skies
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- Sara L. Hart
- 04-09-24
Climate change up close and personal
A story of an American family and their relationship with each other with climate change always there shaping and changing their lives. Smart, often funny, always captivating.
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- R.H Ettinger
- 05-28-24
Ray Porter is a masterful voiceover artist
Loved this book. I hated that it had to end. Rocky, I want to meet you.
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1 person found this helpful
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- karleanne rogers
- 06-23-23
Boyle On Top Again
I maybe biased, but, I feel TC Boyle is one of our greatest living authors.
“Blue Skies”, is another wonderful example of his skill, wit, subtlety, creativity and command of the English language.
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3 people found this helpful
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- Biz
- 04-24-24
Terrific characters & performance
The characters were vivid and flawed, and the story was engaging and laced with glimpses of a not-too-distant future when climate change has fully taken hold. Also, the performance was absolutely outstanding.
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- Fringale Jim
- 05-15-24
Climate Awareness
The science is what grabs you and the characters make this an amazing read! T.C. Boyle has a way with characters that very few writers do. The scenery becomes a character and the alarming climate dystopia becomes your friend.
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- Kindle Customer
- 10-09-24
Compelling story with compelling characters
Throughout the book, there is a subplot of climate change certainly timely. I thought that was important and relevant but what I really liked Were the interwoven stories of a contemporary family, sometimes doing things right and often doing things wrong. The python, the cricket tacos, the descriptions of Florida smelling basically like a swamp all the time all these details added so much dimension to what was going on in the story.
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- ChrisC
- 09-27-23
Interesting and exciting
I learned a few things about the natural world (snakes, ticks, climate change, termites) while also being thoroughly entertained.
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2 people found this helpful
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- Jenny Kahn
- 10-02-24
good summary of the current environmental crisis.
Not many of the characters were very likable. Kind of whiny overprivleged middle class kids like much of America. Maybe that was the authors intent. Still it was a decent book that could of been better.
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- Lisa
- 11-10-23
Classic T.C. Boyle Novel
I loved this book! This was classic T.C. Boyle. He's such a great storyteller, his characters flawed, sometimes even unlikeable, though still relatable. I disagree with the other reviewers who claimed this story to be "preachy." Boyle's characters often have extreme points of view -- extremely conservative, as in "The Harder They Come," extremely far-left. This is how he explores the issues his novels address. Climate change, immigration, authoritarianism, extremism. So I didn't find this novel preachy at all, but it is at times depressing as he graphically describes the changing climate and how it impacts ordinary people. Lauren Groff's "Arcadia" did the same thing, and it's important for people to read. This was a great book and definitely worth the credit.
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- kxbutler0
- 10-12-24
Beautiful-what a writer!
Funny, horrifying, real. I’m still a little traumatized but it is ultimately hopeful. LOVED. Highly recommend. Voice actor terrific.
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