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Narrated by:
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Laurie Birmingham
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By:
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Laura Bell
About this listen
In 1977, Laura Bell, at loose ends after graduating from college, leaves her family home in Kentucky for a wild and unexpected adventure: herding sheep in Wyoming’s Big Horn Basin. Inexorably drawn to this life of solitude and physical toil, a young woman in a man’s world, she is perhaps the strangest member of this beguiling community of drunks and eccentrics.
So begins her unabating search for a place to belong and for the raw materials with which to create a home and family of her own. Yet only through time and distance does she acquire the wisdom that allows her to see the love she lived through and sometimes left behind.
By turns cattle rancher, forest ranger, outfitter, masseuse, wife and mother, Bell vividly recounts her struggle to find solid earth in which to put down roots. Brimming with careful insight and written in a spare, radiant prose, her story is a heart-wrenching ode to the rough, enormous beauty of the Western landscape and the peculiar sweetness of hard labor, to finding oneself even in isolation, to a life formed by nature, and to the redemption of love, whether given or received.
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Story
Set in familiar Steinbeck territory, To a God Unknown is a mystical tale, exploring one man's attempt to control the forces of nature and, ultimately, to understand the ways of God.
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My Favorite Steinbeck; Terrible and Beautiful
- By Michael on 04-28-13
By: John Steinbeck, and others
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Battleborn
- By: Claire Vaye Watkins
- Narrated by: Ali Ahn, Morgan Hallett, Laura Knight Keating, and others
- Length: 8 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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Like the work of Cormac McCarthy, Denis Johnson, Richard Ford, and Annie Proulx, Battleborn represents a near-perfect confluence of sensibility and setting, and the introduction of an exceptionally powerful and original literary voice. In each of these ten unforgettable stories, Claire Vaye Watkins writes her way fearlessly into the mythology of the American West, utterly reimagining it.
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Wonderful magnificent stories beautifully told
- By Pedro Ramirez on 12-03-15
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The Long Valley
- By: John Steinbeck, John H. Timmerman - introduction
- Narrated by: Holter Graham
- Length: 8 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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A Penguin Classic. First published in 1938, this volume of stories collected with the encouragement of his longtime editor Pascal Covici serves as a wonderful introduction to the work of Nobel Prize winner John Steinbeck. Set in the beautiful Salinas Valley of California, where simple people farm the land and struggle to find a place for themselves in the world, these stories reflect Steinbeck’s characteristic interests: The tensions between town and country, laborers and owners, past and present.
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Generally Good Stories, Some are Great
- By Michael on 06-18-13
By: John Steinbeck, and others
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Falling from Horses
- By: Molly Gloss
- Narrated by: David Aaron Baker
- Length: 11 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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>In 1938, 19-year-old cowboy Bud Frazer sets his sights on becoming a stunt rider in the movies. Fantasizing about rubbing shoulders with the great screen cowboys of his youth, he leaves his home in Echol Creek, Oregon, and heads for Hollywood. On the long bus ride south, Bud meets a young woman who also harbors dreams of making it in the movies, though not as a starlet but as a writer, a real writer.
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Good
- By MJ Strub on 10-26-23
By: Molly Gloss
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Bearstone
- By: Will Hobbs
- Narrated by: George Guidall
- Length: 4 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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Growing up without parents and without schooling, 14-year-old Cloyd is trouble - trouble to himself and everyone else. Sent by his tribe to a home for Indian boys, he is alone and half-wild in remote Utah canyons. As his feeling of isolation turns to desperation, he runs away to find even more trouble. When Cloyd is found and taken to live with an old rancher, he begins to explore the countryside.
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Too much swearing
- By C. M. on 05-15-23
By: Will Hobbs
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Coop
- A Year of Poultry, Pigs, and Parenting
- By: Michael Perry
- Narrated by: Michael Perry
- Length: 10 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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Last seen sleeping off his wedding night in the back of a 1951 International Harvester pickup, Michael Perry is now living in a rickety Wisconsin farmhouse. Faced with 37 acres of fallen fences and overgrown fields, and informed by his pregnant wife that she intends to deliver their baby at home, Perry plumbs his unorthodox childhood - his city-bred parents took in more than 100 foster children while running a ramshackle dairy farm - for clues to how to proceed as a farmer, a husband, and a father.
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Meh
- By dpenney on 12-22-16
By: Michael Perry
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The Plague of Doves
- By: Louise Erdrich
- Narrated by: Peter Francis James, Kathleen McInerney
- Length: 11 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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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.
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Avoid this Plague
- By Andre on 05-16-08
By: Louise Erdrich
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The Hawley Book of the Dead
- A Novel
- By: Chrysler Szarlan
- Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell
- Length: 14 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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Revelation "Reve" Dyer grew up with her grandmother’s family stories, stretching back centuries to Reve’s ancestors, who founded the town of Hawley Five Corners, Massachusetts. Their history is steeped in secrets, for few outsiders know that an ancient magic runs in the Dyer women’s blood, and that Reve is a magician whose powers are all too real. Reve and her husband are world-famous Las Vegas illusionists. They have three lovely young daughters, a beautiful home, and what seems like a charmed life. But Reve’s world is shattered....
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It sounded like something I could really love.....
- By Andrea on 10-01-14
By: Chrysler Szarlan
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Horses Never Lie About Love
- The Heartwarming Story of a Remarkable Horse Who Changed the World Around Her
- By: Jana Harris
- Narrated by: Susanna Burney
- Length: 11 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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Combining the drama of The God of Animals with the powerful realism of Chosen by a Horse, award-winning poet Jana Harris tells the inspiring story of her twenty-four-year relationship with a troubled but beautiful, blood-red feral mare who, in spite of her difficult past, has a talent for healing and helping every human and other being she comes into contact with.
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Started off promising
- By Denise Di Giorgio on 03-23-12
By: Jana Harris
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The Royal Wulff Murders
- By: Keith McCafferty
- Narrated by: Rick Holmes
- Length: 10 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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A local fisherman lands more than he bargained for when he pulls a dead body out of Montana’s Madison River. Sheriff Martha Ettinger takes on the case and soon comes into the company of reclusive artist, Montana newcomer, and ex-PI Sean Stranahan. After teaming up to investigate, Martha and Sean soon uncover evidence that the murder has ties to one of the state’s biggest industries: fly fishing.
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I like this series set in Montana
- By L. O. Pardue on 11-14-16
By: Keith McCafferty
What listeners say about Claiming Ground
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Ellen
- 12-09-16
Eloquent and real description of ranch life
I thought Ms Bell did a lovely job of describing the people, animals and places. Rarely does an author capture both beauty and harshness.
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- Peter Oszaczky
- 06-13-18
Wonderful memoir
I am a long time reader of Laura’s work, first time listener. It gets better every time. Laura’s language will astound you. I would have preferred that she had been the reader, but lovely just the same. Hurry up and write your next book Laura Bell!
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- PAM L
- 09-01-19
very much enjoyed
I listened daily as i walked my dog. looked forward to continuing each time. finished the last chapters on a plane. Laura's lead an interesting life since Hiram. knew she would!
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- Rand Hall
- 11-01-16
Beautiful writing
A beautifully written memoir but at timres disjointed and confusing. But so beautifully wtitten it is still a delight to read.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Kelley Millar
- 05-04-23
Very good read
Ms. Bell’s story is captivating and raw. Her truth, her grit, her guilt, her regret, her growth, it’s all woven into a well written story about a life that easily relatable.
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- Bonnie
- 11-24-13
Disappointing
Slow, monotonous, babble. A difficult listen. What else can I say, not my cup of tea!
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1 person found this helpful