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Cloud Atlas
- A Novel
- Narrated by: Scott Brick, Cassandra Campbell, Kim Mai Guest, Kirby Heyborne, John Lee, Richard Matthews
- Length: 19 hrs and 48 mins
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Publisher's summary
By the New York Times best-selling author of The Bone Clocks
Shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize
A postmodern visionary and one of the leading voices in 21st-century fiction, David Mitchell combines flat-out adventure, a Nabokovian love of puzzles, a keen eye for character, and a taste for mind-bending, philosophical, and scientific speculation in the tradition of Umberto Eco, Haruki Murakami, and Philip K. Dick. The result is brilliantly original fiction as profound as it is playful. In this groundbreaking novel, an influential favorite among a new generation of writers, Mitchell explores with daring artistry fundamental questions of reality and identity.
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.... From there we jump to the West Coast in the 1970s and a troubled reporter named Luisa Rey, who stumbles upon a web of corporate greed and murder that threatens to claim her life.... And onward, with dazzling virtuosity, to an inglorious present-day England; to a Korean superstate of the near future where neo-capitalism has run amok; and, finally, to a post-apocalyptic Iron Age Hawaii in the last days of history.
But the story doesn’t end even there. The narrative then boomerangs back through centuries and space, returning by the same route, in reverse, to its starting point. Along the way, Mitchell reveals how his disparate characters connect, how their fates intertwine, and how their souls drift across time like clouds across the sky.
As wild as a videogame, as mysterious as a Zen koan, Cloud Atlas is an unforgettable tour de force that, like its incomparable author, has transcended its cult-classic status to become a worldwide phenomenon.
List of readers:
- The Pacific Journal of Adam Ewing, read by Scott Brick
- Letters from Zedelghem, read by Richard Matthews
- Half-Lives: The First Luisa Rey Mystery, read by Cassandra Campbell
- The Ghastly Ordeal of Timothy Cavendish, read by John Lee
- An Orison of Sonmi-451, read by Kim Mai Guest
- Sloosha’s Crossin’ an’ Ev’rythin’ After, read by Kirby Heyborne
Note to customers: The complicated format of this novel makes it seem that the audio may be cutting off before the end of a story, accompanied by a change in narrator. However, this is the author's intention, so please continue to listen, and the stories will conclude themselves as intended.
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In number-one New York Times best-selling author Charlaine Harris’s "Dahlia Underground,” venerable vampire Dahlia Lynley-Chivers survives an attack by an anti-vampire terrorist group, only to show them they tried to blow up the wrong bloodsucker. Bailey Ruth Raeburn, a ghost assigned to assist humans in trouble, steps into the middle of a marital dispute with surprising twists in Carolyn Hart’s “Riding High”....
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Pleasantly surprised
- By Bonnie on 08-06-11
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The Best Horror of the Year, Volume 4
- By: Ellen Datlow - author/editor, Stephen King, Peter Straub
- Narrated by: Meredith Mitchell, Rebecca Mitchell, Michael Healy, and others
- Length: 16 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
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With tales from Laird Barron, Stephen King, John Langan, Peter Straub, and many others, and featuring Datlow’s comprehensive overview of the year in horror, now, more than ever, The Best Horror of the Year provides the petrifying horror fiction readers have come to expect - and enjoy.
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Only a few decent stories in this bunch.
- By Jerry on 12-06-14
By: Ellen Datlow - author/editor, and others
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The Monstrumologist
- By: Rick Yancey
- Narrated by: Steven Boyer
- Length: 11 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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Dr. Warthrop is a scientist who tracks and studies real-life monsters. Assisted by his 12-year-old apprentice, Will Henry, Dr. Warthrop discovers a pod of Anthropophagi and launches a hunt to destroy the foul beasts.
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Reader Be Warned
- By Eddie on 01-25-15
By: Rick Yancey
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Darling Jim
- A Novel
- By: Christian Moerk
- Narrated by: Stephen Hoye, Justine Eyre
- Length: 10 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
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When two sisters and their aunt are found dead in their suburban Dublin home, it seems that the secret behind their untimely demise will never be known. But then Niall, a young mailman, finds a mysterious diary in the post office's dead-letter bin. From beyond the grave, Fiona Walsh shares the most tragic love story he's ever heard---and her tale has only just begun.
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Great Story
- By Book Worm on 05-28-09
By: Christian Moerk
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The Mark of the Beast
- By: Rudyard Kipling
- Narrated by: B.J. Harrison
- Length: 33 mins
- Unabridged
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When a carousing Englishman disgraces the consecrated effigy of Hanuman, a leprous "Silver Man" marks him with a hideous curse. The ensuing night brings new terrors to the house of the doomed man.
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Must listen again
- By uffdasuzanne on 10-06-17
By: Rudyard Kipling
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Welcome to the Monkey House
- By: Kurt Vonnegut
- Narrated by: David Strathairn, Maria Tucci, Bill Irwin, and others
- Length: 11 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
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Welcome to the Monkey House is a collection of Kurt Vonnegut's shorter works. Originally printed in publications as diverse as The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction and The Atlantic Monthly, what these superb stories share is Vonnegut's audacious sense of humor and extraordinary range of creative vision.
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Classic Vonnegut
- By Michael Carrato on 08-17-06
By: Kurt Vonnegut
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The Patriots
- A Novel
- By: Sana Krasikov
- Narrated by: Suzanne Toren, George Guidall
- Length: 22 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
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Florence Fein grows up in Brooklyn in the 1930s, in a family that is gaining a foothold in the middle class. At City College she becomes engaged politically with the left-leaning student groups, and eventually, in the midst of the Depression, she takes a job with a trade organization that has a position for her in Moscow. There, she falls in love with another expatriate American and has a son. Soon after, Florence is sent to a work camp and her son to an orphanage.
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Point of View of characters, past and present collide
- By Angela Adams on 01-29-19
By: Sana Krasikov
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Fragile Things
- By: Neil Gaiman
- Narrated by: Neil Gaiman
- Length: 10 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
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Marvelous creations, including a short story set in the world of The Matrix and others set in the worlds of gothic fiction and children's fiction, can be found in this extraordinary collection, which showcases Gaiman's storytelling brilliance as well as his entertaining (and dark) sense of humor.
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Perhaps a different format?
- By Karen on 11-03-10
By: Neil Gaiman
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The Book of Magic
- By: Gardner Dozois - editor, Scott Lynch, Elizabeth Bear, and others
- Narrated by: Karissa Vacker, Sile Bermingham, Maxwell Caulfield, and others
- Length: 24 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Hot on the heels of Gardner Dozois's acclaimed anthology The Book of Swords comes this companion volume devoted to magic. How could it be otherwise? For every Frodo, there is a Gandalf... and a Saruman. For every Dorothy, a Glinda... and a Wicked Witch of the West. What would Harry Potter be without Albus Dumbledore... and Severus Snape? Figures of wisdom and power, possessing arcane, often forbidden knowledge, wizards and sorcerers are shaped - or misshaped - by the potent magic they seek to wield.
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some stinkers mostly good
- By M.T. on 12-11-18
By: Gardner Dozois - editor, and others
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The Satanic Verses
- By: Salman Rushdie
- Narrated by: Sam Dastor
- Length: 21 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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Inextricably linked with the fatwa called against its author in the wake of the novel’s publication, The Satanic Verses is, beyond that, a rich showcase for Salman Rushdie’s comic sensibilities, cultural observations, and unparalleled mastery of language. The book begins with two Indians plummeting from the sky after the explosion of their airliner, and proceeds through a series of metamorphoses, dreams and revelations.
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Use an audiobook to really enjoy Satanic Verses
- By David Edelberg on 11-24-12
By: Salman Rushdie
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Angelmaker
- By: Nick Harkaway
- Narrated by: Daniel Weyman
- Length: 18 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Joe Spork repairs clocks, a far cry from his late father, a flashy London gangster. But when Joe fixes one particularly unusual device, his life is suddenly upended. Joe's client, Edie Banister, is more than just a kindly old lady - she's a former superspy. And the device? It's a 1950s doomsday machine. And having triggered it, Joe now faces the wrath of both the government and a diabolical South Asian dictator, Edie's old arch-nemesis.
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A cure for the modern cynic
- By Maine Colonial 🌲 on 08-28-12
By: Nick Harkaway
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Sometimes a Great Notion
- By: Ken Kesey
- Narrated by: Tom Stechschulte
- Length: 30 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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A literary icon sometimes seen as a bridge between the Beat Generation and the hippies, Ken Kesey scored an unexpected hit with his first novel, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. His successful follow-up, Sometimes a Great Notion, was also transformed into a major motion picture, directed by and starring Paul Newman. Here, Oregon’s Stamper family does what it can to survive a bitter strike dividing their tiny logging community. And as tensions rise, delicate family bonds begin to fray and unravel.
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Sometimes a Great Novel Pops up out of Nowhere
- By Mr. Eyuz on 06-07-19
By: Ken Kesey
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Perchance to Dream
- Selected Stories
- By: Charles Beaumont
- Narrated by: J. Paul Boehmer, Gabrielle de Cuir, Harlan Ellison, and others
- Length: 12 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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The profoundly original and wildly entertaining short stories of a legendary Twilight Zone writer. It is only natural that Charles Beaumont would make a name for himself crafting scripts for The Twilight Zone - for his was an imagination so limitless it must have emerged from some other dimension. Perchance to Dream contains a selection of Beaumont's finest stories, including five that he later adapted for Twilight Zone episodes.
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Contents
- By Ralph Freaster on 06-22-16
By: Charles Beaumont
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Winner, The Man Booker Prize, 2015 Deftly spanning decades and continents and peopled with a wide range of characters - assassins, journalists, drug dealers, and even ghosts - A Brief History of Seven Killings is the fictional exploration of that dangerous and unstable time and its bloody aftermath, from the streets and slums of Kingston in the 1970s, to the crack wars in 1980s New York, to a radically altered Jamaica in the 1990s.
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February 1862. The Civil War is less than one year old. The fighting has begun in earnest, and the nation has begun to realize it is in for a long, bloody struggle. Meanwhile, President Lincoln’s beloved eleven-year-old son, Willie, lies upstairs in the White House, gravely ill. In a matter of days, despite predictions of a recovery, Willie dies and is laid to rest in a Georgetown cemetery. “My poor boy, he was too good for this earth,” the president says at the time. “God has called him home.”
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What listeners say about Cloud Atlas
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall
- Hadassah
- 01-19-05
Easy listening it ain't
This is an extremely clever book filled with nuances and devices that would, I think, be better appreciated in the written form; to state the obvious, it's much easier to flip back in a book than it is to scan back on a listening device. But you (who am I kidding, I mean me; it's all about me) feel pretty darned smart while listening to the second half of the book when you find that not only do you really get it, but that you are also able to make "aha" connections between parts early on in the book that made almost no sense at the time. This isn't a mystery (although one of the stories within the book does take the form of a mystery, of sorts) but I often felt as if I would have been better able to keep up with the story if I had been taking notes; then again, that probably would have interfered with my ability to sleep on the subway while listening to some of this book. On an almost entirely positive note, some of the narration is excellent and the fact that the book is split up into six different stories with different narrators makes it very easy on the ear, if a little taxing on the brain.
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Overall
- Candace
- 08-22-05
I am confused
on 1st story and the reader reads so fast I cannot keep up with what is going on. I will keep listening
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2 people found this helpful
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Story
- thawstone
- 08-19-12
5 stars for 5
This novel is comprised of five very distinct stories all incorporating the theme, as Dr. Goose put it, "the weak are meat and the strong eat." The stories are wedding cake tiered upon each other meaning 4 of the stories are split into 2 parts with only the 5th, top tier, being told from beginning to end. Readers beware that the first story ends in the middle of a sentence so that you'll think something is wrong with the recording. None of the other stories do that.
Two of the stories are voiced with English accents, which I found a liitle disconcerting for the first several minutes, but I soon became accustomed. Actually, I was compelled to pay attention to the conversation (mostly first person narrative) due shearly to the fact that David Mitchell is so witty, humorous, and cleaver, I didn't want to miss anything.
I've never heard anything like the top tier story told from a Pacific Islander point of view. The Pidgen English of this narrative was also a little disconcerting at first, but after awhile I found myself marveling at the amazing vocabulary the author put together to pull this off. It must have taken an enormous amount of time and research.
I picked this book due to the good reviews and I'll pass it forward, though not for anyone looking for a light read.
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- Midwest Male
- 11-15-20
Some good storytelling but not cohesive
I enjoyed a couple of the stories. Did not enjoy a couple of them too. The old guy trapped in a retirement home had me laughing out loud. I kept waiting for the author to tie all the stories together, and I was rather shocked when it ended. Felt kind of lazy to me. Like maybe the author had a few short stories lying about, so he slapped a birthmark on the protagonist and called it reincarnation.
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Overall
- T. C. Pile
- 11-30-08
Strung out across centuries
This far-reaching set of interconnected stories has a lot of reach, and it takes you many hours of listening before you start to put it together. When you do, it's a fascinating concept carried to a conclusion that gets stretched a bit. The writing is virtuosic; as Mitchell jumps between centuries, so do his dialog and style.
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Overall
- Helmut
- 07-31-06
Disjointed
While the individual stories are interesting, the connection between them is tenuous and not inspiring. This is the first in aprox. 20 audio books that I haven't been able to make myself finish.
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- Gena
- 10-03-13
skip the movie, skip the book - do audio!
What made the experience of listening to Cloud Atlas the most enjoyable?
Excellent narration! I watched the movie afterwards and it stunk. The audio book easily ties all the story lines together and the different voices and accents make it difficult to put down.
What other book might you compare Cloud Atlas to and why?
Unique. I've never read (Listened to) anything like it.
Which scene was your favorite?
The guy in the old folks home was hilarious from the start. I replayed parts from this section over and over and kept laughing.
Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?
It was an experience. You have to listen to this audio to get the whole deal. Better than ANY movie I've seen in the past year.
Any additional comments?
SKIP THE MOVIE AND THE BOOK........this one was MADE for audio!
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Overall
- Lowroad
- 11-22-05
Interesting and Confusing
The short stories are interesting and some of them even fascinating, especially considering they have a such different styles and settings. What ultimately confused and even irritated me was the way the author tried to connect the stories. The stories really do not have anything in common (other than the author) and the attempt to relate them to each other seemed artificial and confusing (especially in the audio format).
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- David
- 07-24-14
A Symphony of Words With Movement and Depth.
Where does Cloud Atlas rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?
This is one of the better listens out there. Many readers voice the various perspectives and bring entire casts of lively characters to each section. Each reader is like a change from one movement in a classical symphony to the next, and I think that may be what the author was looking for.
Who was your favorite character and why?
The Ascended servant from the 4th arc is by far my favorite. Sure, her story is wrapped in classic dystopian sci-fi, but beyond that her story is that of an underdog's, or Woman versus Society. I root for her from the start, even though you know from the situation of her present that she is already lost.
Which scene was your favorite?
I love the scene where the author of "Knuckle Sandwich" throws his harshest critic from a high balcony to his death. That scene is a gem and a keeper.
Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?
Because of the nature of this story's construction, I found it best to take in sections. I listened to one entire arc at a time, but paused after the completion of each, because this is the kind of book that demands time for rumination. Do not speed through it, or you will miss grand subtleties.
Any additional comments?
Cloud Atlas is a composite masterpiece. Gets 4 stars overall because it is complex, and sometimes it takes pains to thread its core themes to each and every narrative junction, and that is the worse thing I have to say about it.
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- Sebastian
- 10-04-16
My favorite book so far
This book contains many stories within, and so there is a different narrator for each one. All of them made this book so much more enjoyable! This book is very entertaining in its story telling and at the same time, goes deep in existential philosophy, not in a boring kind of way though. Very highly recommended for your entertainment and your soul.
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