-
Cries for Help, Various: Stories
- Narrated by: Padgett Powell
- Length: 6 hrs and 36 mins
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 $19.95
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
Publisher's summary
From the highly acclaimed author of Edisto and The Interrogative Mood, Padgett Powell's new collection of stories, Cries for Help, Various Stories, follows his mentor Donald Barthelme's advice that "wacky mode must "break their hearts". The surrealistic and comical terrain of most of the 44 stories here is grounded by a real preoccupation with longing, fear, work, loneliness, and cultural nostalgia. These universal concerns are given exhilarating life by way of Powell's "wit, his...dazzling turns of phrase" (Scott Spencer).
In "Joplin and Dickens", the musician and writer meet as emotionally needy students in an American grade school; in "Change of Life", a father ponders whether getting new clothes for the family or the patriotic purchase of a "new Government Cookie Flyer" would be more meaningful. In "The Imperative Mood", giving orders to others "Fall back and regroup" leads less to power than to rumination.
Padgett Powell's language is both lofty and low-down, his tone cranky and heartfelt, exuberant and inconsolable. His characters rebel against convention and ambition, hoping to maintain their very sanity by doing so. Even the most hilarious or fantastical stories in Cries for Help, Various ring gloriously, poignantly, true.
Listeners also enjoyed...
-
Ship the Kids on Ahead
- By: Bill Stokes
- Narrated by: Sean Runnette, James Foster, Stefan Rudnicki, and others
- Length: 3 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
We all have that one older funny family member. You know the one, he tells stories from his experiences and usually has people rolling their eyes. William Stokes is that person! He presents a delightful collection of memories that are truly life lessons even today! Stokes, through his memories and wit, provides opportunities to learn through laughter, sharing of memories and love.
-
-
Different and fun
- By erobbins33 on 09-20-16
By: Bill Stokes
-
Naked
- By: David Sedaris
- Narrated by: David Sedaris, Amy Sedaris
- Length: 3 hrs and 4 mins
- Abridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Welcome to the hilarious, strange, elegiac, outrageous world of David Sedaris. In Naked, Sedaris turns the current mania for the memoir on its proverbial ear, mining the exceedingly rich terrain of his life, his family, and his unique worldview, a sensibility at once take-no-prisoners sharp and deeply charitable.
-
-
Not the whole book
- By Gabriela on 03-09-13
By: David Sedaris
-
Me Talk Pretty One Day
- By: David Sedaris
- Narrated by: David Sedaris
- Length: 5 hrs and 51 mins
- Abridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
David Sedaris' collection of essays - including live recordings! - tells a most unconventional life story. With every clever turn of a phrase, Sedaris brings a view and a voice like no other to every unforgettable encounter. You can also listen to Sedaris in an interview with Terry Gross on Fresh Air.
-
-
Subtly Funny Musings on Life Experiences
- By FanB14 on 09-03-12
By: David Sedaris
-
Oryx and Crake
- By: Margaret Atwood
- Narrated by: Campbell Scott
- Length: 10 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The narrator of Atwood's riveting novel calls himself Snowman. When the story opens, he is sleeping in a tree, wearing an old bedsheet, mourning the loss of his beloved Oryx and his best friend Crake, and slowly starving to death. He searches for supplies in a wasteland where insects proliferate and pigoons and wolvogs ravage the pleeblands, where ordinary people once lived, and the Compounds that sheltered the extraordinary. As he tries to piece together what has taken place, the narrative shifts to decades earlier. How did everything fall apart so quickly?
-
-
Brilliant Science Fiction
- By Michael on 05-20-03
By: Margaret Atwood
-
When You Are Engulfed in Flames
- By: David Sedaris
- Narrated by: David Sedaris
- Length: 9 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Once again, David Sedaris brings together a collection of essays so uproariously funny and profoundly moving that his legions of fans will fall for him all over again. He tests the limits of love when Hugh lances a boil from his backside, and pushes the boundaries of laziness when, finding the water shut off in his house in Normandy, he looks to the water in a vase of fresh cut flowers to fill the coffee machine.
-
-
Don't Start with this One
- By Elvie on 04-28-16
By: David Sedaris
-
Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim
- By: David Sedaris
- Narrated by: David Sedaris
- Length: 6 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In his newest collection of essays, David Sedaris lifts the corner of ordinary life, revealing the absurdity teeming below its surface. His world is alive with obscure desires and hidden motives, a world where forgiveness is automatic and an argument can be the highest form of love. Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim is another unforgettable collection from one of the wittiest and most original writers at work today.
-
-
Sedaris is the gay Mark Twain.
- By Steve on 06-02-04
By: David Sedaris
-
Ship the Kids on Ahead
- By: Bill Stokes
- Narrated by: Sean Runnette, James Foster, Stefan Rudnicki, and others
- Length: 3 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
We all have that one older funny family member. You know the one, he tells stories from his experiences and usually has people rolling their eyes. William Stokes is that person! He presents a delightful collection of memories that are truly life lessons even today! Stokes, through his memories and wit, provides opportunities to learn through laughter, sharing of memories and love.
-
-
Different and fun
- By erobbins33 on 09-20-16
By: Bill Stokes
-
Naked
- By: David Sedaris
- Narrated by: David Sedaris, Amy Sedaris
- Length: 3 hrs and 4 mins
- Abridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Welcome to the hilarious, strange, elegiac, outrageous world of David Sedaris. In Naked, Sedaris turns the current mania for the memoir on its proverbial ear, mining the exceedingly rich terrain of his life, his family, and his unique worldview, a sensibility at once take-no-prisoners sharp and deeply charitable.
-
-
Not the whole book
- By Gabriela on 03-09-13
By: David Sedaris
-
Me Talk Pretty One Day
- By: David Sedaris
- Narrated by: David Sedaris
- Length: 5 hrs and 51 mins
- Abridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
David Sedaris' collection of essays - including live recordings! - tells a most unconventional life story. With every clever turn of a phrase, Sedaris brings a view and a voice like no other to every unforgettable encounter. You can also listen to Sedaris in an interview with Terry Gross on Fresh Air.
-
-
Subtly Funny Musings on Life Experiences
- By FanB14 on 09-03-12
By: David Sedaris
-
Oryx and Crake
- By: Margaret Atwood
- Narrated by: Campbell Scott
- Length: 10 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The narrator of Atwood's riveting novel calls himself Snowman. When the story opens, he is sleeping in a tree, wearing an old bedsheet, mourning the loss of his beloved Oryx and his best friend Crake, and slowly starving to death. He searches for supplies in a wasteland where insects proliferate and pigoons and wolvogs ravage the pleeblands, where ordinary people once lived, and the Compounds that sheltered the extraordinary. As he tries to piece together what has taken place, the narrative shifts to decades earlier. How did everything fall apart so quickly?
-
-
Brilliant Science Fiction
- By Michael on 05-20-03
By: Margaret Atwood
-
When You Are Engulfed in Flames
- By: David Sedaris
- Narrated by: David Sedaris
- Length: 9 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Once again, David Sedaris brings together a collection of essays so uproariously funny and profoundly moving that his legions of fans will fall for him all over again. He tests the limits of love when Hugh lances a boil from his backside, and pushes the boundaries of laziness when, finding the water shut off in his house in Normandy, he looks to the water in a vase of fresh cut flowers to fill the coffee machine.
-
-
Don't Start with this One
- By Elvie on 04-28-16
By: David Sedaris
-
Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim
- By: David Sedaris
- Narrated by: David Sedaris
- Length: 6 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In his newest collection of essays, David Sedaris lifts the corner of ordinary life, revealing the absurdity teeming below its surface. His world is alive with obscure desires and hidden motives, a world where forgiveness is automatic and an argument can be the highest form of love. Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim is another unforgettable collection from one of the wittiest and most original writers at work today.
-
-
Sedaris is the gay Mark Twain.
- By Steve on 06-02-04
By: David Sedaris
-
Let's Explore Diabetes with Owls
- By: David Sedaris
- Narrated by: David Sedaris
- Length: 6 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From the unique perspective of David Sedaris comes a new collection of essays taking his listeners on a bizarre and stimulating world tour. From the perils of French dentistry to the eating habits of the Australian kookaburra, from the squat-style toilets of Beijing to the particular wilderness of a North Carolina Costco, we learn about the absurdity and delight of a curious traveler's experiences.
-
-
Devout Fan Disappointed
- By FanB14 on 05-07-13
By: David Sedaris
-
Holidays on Ice
- Featuring Six New Stories
- By: David Sedaris
- Narrated by: David Sedaris
- Length: 4 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
David Sedaris's beloved holiday collection is new again with six more pieces, including a never before published story. Along with such favorites as the diaries of a Macy's elf and the annals of two very competitive families, are Sedaris's tales of tardy trick-or-treaters ("Us and Them"); the difficulties of explaining the Easter Bunny to the French ("Jesus Shaves"); and what to do when you've been locked out in a snowstorm ("Let It Snow").
-
-
Best When In SantaLand
- By Dave on 12-06-11
By: David Sedaris
-
The Bean Trees
- By: Barbara Kingsolver
- Narrated by: C. J. Critt
- Length: 9 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Clear-eyed and spirited, Taylor Greer grew up poor in rural Kentucky with the goals of avoiding pregnancy and getting away. But when she heads west with high hopes and a barely functional car, she meets the human condition head-on. By the time Taylor arrives in Tucson, Arizona, she has acquired a completely unexpected child, a three-year-old American Indian girl named Turtle, and must somehow come to terms with both motherhood and the necessity of putting down roots.
-
-
Barbara, can we have a "re-do?"
- By Nancy on 02-22-12
-
Tenth of December
- Stories
- By: George Saunders
- Narrated by: George Saunders
- Length: 5 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Writing brilliantly and profoundly about class, sex, love, loss, work, despair, and war, Saunders cuts to the core of the contemporary experience. These stories take on the big questions and explore the fault lines of our own morality, delving into the questions of what makes us good and what makes us human.
-
-
Be prepared for something different...but good!
- By Mr. D on 02-21-14
By: George Saunders
-
We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves
- By: Karen Joy Fowler
- Narrated by: Orlagh Cassidy
- Length: 8 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Meet the Cooke family: Mother and Dad, brother Lowell, sister Fern, and Rosemary, who begins her story in the middle. She has her reasons. “I was raised with a chimpanzee”, she explains. “I tell you Fern was a chimp and already you aren’t thinking of her as my sister. But until Fern’s expulsion...she was my twin, my funhouse mirror, my whirlwind other half and I loved her as a sister”. As a child, Rosemary never stopped talking. Then, something happened, and Rosemary wrapped herself in silence.
-
-
This was totally worth the credit.
- By Amber on 10-04-13
By: Karen Joy Fowler
-
I Know I Am, But What Are You?
- By: Samantha Bee
- Narrated by: Samantha Bee
- Length: 6 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Critics have called her “sweet, adorable, and vicious.” But there is so much more to be said about Samantha Bee. For one, she’s Canadian - whatever that means. And now, she opens up for the very first time about her checkered Canadian past. With charming candor, she admits to her Lennie from Of Mice and Men-style love of baby animals, her teenage crime spree as one-half of a car-thieving couple, and the fact that strangers seem compelled to show her their genitals.
-
-
I gotta ramble.
- By Megan on 01-08-11
By: Samantha Bee
-
Driving on the Rim
- By: Thomas McGuane
- Narrated by: Traber Burns
- Length: 12 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The unforgettable voyager of this dark picaresque is I. B. "Berl" Pickett, M.D., whose die was probably cast the moment his mother thought to name him after Irving Berlin. Other insults piled on apace thereafter: the spasms of Pentecostal Sunday worship; the social debilitation of following his parents' itinerant rug-shampooing business; the erotic initiation at the hands of his aunt. It's hard to imagine what would have become of him had he not gone to medical school.
-
-
Delightful
- By Roy on 01-05-11
By: Thomas McGuane
-
Tiger, Tiger
- A Memoir
- By: Margaux Fragoso
- Narrated by: Susan Bennett
- Length: 12 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
One summer day, Margaux Fragoso meets Peter Curran at the neighborhood swimming pool, and they begin to play. She is seven; he is 51. When Peter invites her and her mother to his house, the little girl finds a child’s paradise of exotic pets and an elaborate backyard garden. Her mother, beset by mental illness and overwhelmed by caring for Margaux, is grateful for the attention Peter lavishes on her, and he creates an imaginative universe for her, much as Lewis Carroll did for his real-life Alice.
-
-
a weirdly loving diatribe against pervs.
- By Dane Flakeman on 05-21-11
By: Margaux Fragoso
-
The Visiting Privilege
- New and Collected Stories
- By: Joy Williams
- Narrated by: Richard Powers, Emily Woo Zeller, Elisabeth Rodgers, and others
- Length: 20 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Joy Williams has been celebrated as a master of the short story for four decades, her renown passing from one generation to the next even in the shifting landscape of contemporary writing. And at long last the incredible scope of her singular achievement is put on display: 33 stories drawn from three much-lauded collections and another 13 appearing here for the first time in book form.
-
-
I sure tried.
- By A.C. CALLOWAY on 01-28-24
By: Joy Williams
-
Even Cowgirls Get the Blues
- By: Tom Robbins
- Narrated by: Michael Nouri
- Length: 13 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Sissy Hankshaw, an almost flawlessly beautiful small-town girl with big-time dreams, hitchhikes her way into your heart, your hopes, and your sleeping bag in Tom Robbins's magical, funny, and most famous novel. Follow Sissy's amazing odyssey from Virginia to chic Manhattan to the Dakota Badlands, where FBI agents, cowgirls, and ecstatic whooping cranes explode in a deliciously drawn-out climax.
-
-
Better than the sum of its parts
- By Ian C Robertson on 01-28-13
By: Tom Robbins
-
The World's Largest Man
- A Memoir
- By: Harrison Scott Key
- Narrated by: Harrison Scott Key
- Length: 9 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Harrison Scott Key was born in Memphis, but he grew up in Mississippi, among pious, Bible-reading women and men who either shot things or got women pregnant. At the center of his world was his larger-than-life father - a hunter, a fighter, and a football coach. Harrison, with his love of books and excessive interest in hugging, couldn't have been less like Pop, and when it became clear that he was not able to kill anything very well or otherwise make his father happy, he resolved to become everything his father was not.
-
-
I laughed every day to and from work. Loved it!
- By KufRN on 06-06-18
-
Telex from Cuba
- A Novel
- By: Rachel Kushner
- Narrated by: Lloyd James
- Length: 12 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Young Everly Lederer and K.C. Stites come of age in Oriente Province, where the Americans tend their own fiefdom - 300,000 acres of United Fruit Company sugarcane that surround their gated enclave. If the rural tropics are a child's dreamworld, Everly and K.C. nevertheless have keen eyes for the indulgences and betrayals of the grown-ups around them - the mordant drinking and illicit loves, the race hierarchies and violence. In Havana, 1,000 kilometers and a world away from the American colony, a cabaret dancer meets a French agitator named Christian de La Mazière.
-
-
So-so
- By Lissa Goldman on 06-14-23
By: Rachel Kushner
Related to this topic
-
Driving on the Rim
- By: Thomas McGuane
- Narrated by: Traber Burns
- Length: 12 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The unforgettable voyager of this dark picaresque is I. B. "Berl" Pickett, M.D., whose die was probably cast the moment his mother thought to name him after Irving Berlin. Other insults piled on apace thereafter: the spasms of Pentecostal Sunday worship; the social debilitation of following his parents' itinerant rug-shampooing business; the erotic initiation at the hands of his aunt. It's hard to imagine what would have become of him had he not gone to medical school.
-
-
Delightful
- By Roy on 01-05-11
By: Thomas McGuane
-
Tiger, Tiger
- A Memoir
- By: Margaux Fragoso
- Narrated by: Susan Bennett
- Length: 12 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
One summer day, Margaux Fragoso meets Peter Curran at the neighborhood swimming pool, and they begin to play. She is seven; he is 51. When Peter invites her and her mother to his house, the little girl finds a child’s paradise of exotic pets and an elaborate backyard garden. Her mother, beset by mental illness and overwhelmed by caring for Margaux, is grateful for the attention Peter lavishes on her, and he creates an imaginative universe for her, much as Lewis Carroll did for his real-life Alice.
-
-
a weirdly loving diatribe against pervs.
- By Dane Flakeman on 05-21-11
By: Margaux Fragoso
-
The Visiting Privilege
- New and Collected Stories
- By: Joy Williams
- Narrated by: Richard Powers, Emily Woo Zeller, Elisabeth Rodgers, and others
- Length: 20 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Joy Williams has been celebrated as a master of the short story for four decades, her renown passing from one generation to the next even in the shifting landscape of contemporary writing. And at long last the incredible scope of her singular achievement is put on display: 33 stories drawn from three much-lauded collections and another 13 appearing here for the first time in book form.
-
-
I sure tried.
- By A.C. CALLOWAY on 01-28-24
By: Joy Williams
-
The World's Largest Man
- A Memoir
- By: Harrison Scott Key
- Narrated by: Harrison Scott Key
- Length: 9 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Harrison Scott Key was born in Memphis, but he grew up in Mississippi, among pious, Bible-reading women and men who either shot things or got women pregnant. At the center of his world was his larger-than-life father - a hunter, a fighter, and a football coach. Harrison, with his love of books and excessive interest in hugging, couldn't have been less like Pop, and when it became clear that he was not able to kill anything very well or otherwise make his father happy, he resolved to become everything his father was not.
-
-
I laughed every day to and from work. Loved it!
- By KufRN on 06-06-18
-
Mislaid
- A Novel
- By: Nell Zink
- Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell
- Length: 8 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Stillwater College in Virginia, 1966. Freshman Peggy, an ingénue with literary pretensions, falls under the spell of Lee, a blue-blooded poet and professor, and they begin an ill-advised affair that results in an unplanned pregnancy and marriage. The couple are mismatched from the start - she's a lesbian, he's gay - but it takes a decade of emotional erosion before Peggy runs off with their three-year-old daughter, leaving their nine-year-old son behind.
-
-
Misbegotten, mishandled, misfired novel
- By Julie W. Capell on 02-07-16
By: Nell Zink
-
Too Close to the Falls
- A Memoir
- By: Catherine Gildiner
- Narrated by: Allyson Johnson
- Length: 11 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Welcome to the childhood of Catherine McClure Gildiner. It is the middle of the 1950s in Lewiston, New York, a small and sleepy American town very near Niagara Falls. No one is divorced. Mothers wear high heels to the beauty salon and children pop Pez candy and swing from vines over a local gorge. But at the tender age of four, it becomes clear to her Cathy's parents that their rambunctious daughter is no ordinary child and they soon put her "to work" at her father's pharmacy.
-
-
Brilliant and funny and touching.
- By Kindle Customer on 11-07-19
-
Driving on the Rim
- By: Thomas McGuane
- Narrated by: Traber Burns
- Length: 12 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The unforgettable voyager of this dark picaresque is I. B. "Berl" Pickett, M.D., whose die was probably cast the moment his mother thought to name him after Irving Berlin. Other insults piled on apace thereafter: the spasms of Pentecostal Sunday worship; the social debilitation of following his parents' itinerant rug-shampooing business; the erotic initiation at the hands of his aunt. It's hard to imagine what would have become of him had he not gone to medical school.
-
-
Delightful
- By Roy on 01-05-11
By: Thomas McGuane
-
Tiger, Tiger
- A Memoir
- By: Margaux Fragoso
- Narrated by: Susan Bennett
- Length: 12 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
One summer day, Margaux Fragoso meets Peter Curran at the neighborhood swimming pool, and they begin to play. She is seven; he is 51. When Peter invites her and her mother to his house, the little girl finds a child’s paradise of exotic pets and an elaborate backyard garden. Her mother, beset by mental illness and overwhelmed by caring for Margaux, is grateful for the attention Peter lavishes on her, and he creates an imaginative universe for her, much as Lewis Carroll did for his real-life Alice.
-
-
a weirdly loving diatribe against pervs.
- By Dane Flakeman on 05-21-11
By: Margaux Fragoso
-
The Visiting Privilege
- New and Collected Stories
- By: Joy Williams
- Narrated by: Richard Powers, Emily Woo Zeller, Elisabeth Rodgers, and others
- Length: 20 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Joy Williams has been celebrated as a master of the short story for four decades, her renown passing from one generation to the next even in the shifting landscape of contemporary writing. And at long last the incredible scope of her singular achievement is put on display: 33 stories drawn from three much-lauded collections and another 13 appearing here for the first time in book form.
-
-
I sure tried.
- By A.C. CALLOWAY on 01-28-24
By: Joy Williams
-
The World's Largest Man
- A Memoir
- By: Harrison Scott Key
- Narrated by: Harrison Scott Key
- Length: 9 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Harrison Scott Key was born in Memphis, but he grew up in Mississippi, among pious, Bible-reading women and men who either shot things or got women pregnant. At the center of his world was his larger-than-life father - a hunter, a fighter, and a football coach. Harrison, with his love of books and excessive interest in hugging, couldn't have been less like Pop, and when it became clear that he was not able to kill anything very well or otherwise make his father happy, he resolved to become everything his father was not.
-
-
I laughed every day to and from work. Loved it!
- By KufRN on 06-06-18
-
Mislaid
- A Novel
- By: Nell Zink
- Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell
- Length: 8 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Stillwater College in Virginia, 1966. Freshman Peggy, an ingénue with literary pretensions, falls under the spell of Lee, a blue-blooded poet and professor, and they begin an ill-advised affair that results in an unplanned pregnancy and marriage. The couple are mismatched from the start - she's a lesbian, he's gay - but it takes a decade of emotional erosion before Peggy runs off with their three-year-old daughter, leaving their nine-year-old son behind.
-
-
Misbegotten, mishandled, misfired novel
- By Julie W. Capell on 02-07-16
By: Nell Zink
-
Too Close to the Falls
- A Memoir
- By: Catherine Gildiner
- Narrated by: Allyson Johnson
- Length: 11 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Welcome to the childhood of Catherine McClure Gildiner. It is the middle of the 1950s in Lewiston, New York, a small and sleepy American town very near Niagara Falls. No one is divorced. Mothers wear high heels to the beauty salon and children pop Pez candy and swing from vines over a local gorge. But at the tender age of four, it becomes clear to her Cathy's parents that their rambunctious daughter is no ordinary child and they soon put her "to work" at her father's pharmacy.
-
-
Brilliant and funny and touching.
- By Kindle Customer on 11-07-19
-
She Got Up Off the Couch
- By: Haven Kimmel
- Narrated by: Haven Kimmel
- Length: 8 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When we last saw Zippy, she was oblivious to the storm that was brewing in her home. Her mother, Delonda, had literally just gotten up off the couch and ridden her rickety bicycle down the road. Her dad was off somewhere, gambling or "working." And Zippy was lost in her own fabulous world of exploring the fringes of Moorland, Indiana.
-
-
Great fun !!
- By Kim on 04-20-11
By: Haven Kimmel
-
Children Playing Before a Statue of Hercules (Unabridged Selections)
- By: Edited by David Sedaris
- Narrated by: David Sedaris, Mary-Louise Parker, Cherry Jones
- Length: 2 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Children Playing Before a Statue of Hercules is a collection of short stories, some classic, others impending, selected and introduced by David Sedaris.
-
-
Great stories but only 5 of 17 are included
- By Terri Kirk on 07-13-12
-
There's Nothing in This Book That I Meant to Say
- By: Paula Poundstone
- Narrated by: Paula Poundstone
- Length: 5 hrs and 59 mins
- Abridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
What do the lives of Lincoln, Helen Keller, Joan of Arc, and other historical figures have in common with Paula Poundstone? In the hands of this wryly observant and self-deprecating comedian, the answer is outrageously funny and unexpectedly touching. Poundstone compares her crazy life to theirs, as she holds forth on her children, her career, and the time in her life when it appeared she would lose them both.
-
-
More!
- By Evelyn on 02-11-07
By: Paula Poundstone
-
The Portable Veblen
- By: Elizabeth Mckenzie
- Narrated by: Julia Gibson
- Length: 12 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
An exuberant, one-of-a-kind novel about love and family, war and nature, new money and old values by a brilliant New Yorker contributor. The Portable Veblen is a dazzlingly original novel that's as big-hearted as it is laugh-out-loud funny. Set in and around Palo Alto amid the culture clash of new money and old (antiestablishment) values, and with the specter of our current wars looming across its words, The Portable Veblen is an unforgettable look at the way we live now.
-
-
Not what it was cracked up to be
- By Linda on 02-03-16
-
Humboldt's Gift
- By: Saul Bellow
- Narrated by: Christopher Hurt
- Length: 18 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
For years, they were the best of friends: the grand, erratic Humboldt and the ambitious young Charlie. But now Humboldt has died a failure, and Charlie's success-ridden life has taken various turns for the worse. Then Humboldt acts from the grave to change Charlie's life: he has left Charlie something in his will.
-
-
Great Book, Great Reader
- By Scott on 05-10-08
By: Saul Bellow
-
Priestdaddy
- A Memoir
- By: Patricia Lockwood
- Narrated by: Patricia Lockwood
- Length: 10 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Father Greg Lockwood is unlike any Catholic priest you have ever met - a man who lounges in boxer shorts, who loves action movies, and whose constant jamming on the guitar reverberates "like a whole band dying in a plane crash in 1972". His daughter is an irreverent poet who long ago left the church's country. When an unexpected crisis leads her and her husband to move back into her parents' rectory, their two worlds collide.
-
-
Terrible narration--read, don't listen
- By Penelope on 08-06-17
-
Please Don't Eat the Daisies
- By: Jean Kerr
- Narrated by: Marni Webb
- Length: 2 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This collection of essays observes the perils of motherhood, wifehood, selfhood, and other assorted challenges. Since its publication in 1957, it has sold millions of copies and has been adapted into a Broadway play, a film, a TV series, and now an audiobook. Jean Kerr's parodies of the clichéd 1950s prescription for glamorous or maternal feminine behavior still resonate today as we enter the 21st century.
-
-
Poor narration of smart, dry, funny essays
- By Buyseverythingonline on 04-30-16
By: Jean Kerr
-
The One-in-a-Million Boy
- By: Monica Wood
- Narrated by: Chris Ciulla
- Length: 10 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
For years, guitarist Quinn Porter has been on the road, chasing gig after gig, largely absent to his twice-ex-wife Belle and their odd, Guinness records-obsessed son. When the boy dies suddenly, Quinn seeks forgiveness for his paternal shortcomings by completing the requirements for one of his son's unfinished Boy Scout badges. For seven Saturdays Quinn does yard work for Ona Vitkus, the spry 104-year-old Lithuanian immigrant the boy had visited weekly.
-
-
Loved it
- By Justin on 10-20-16
By: Monica Wood
-
Strong Motion
- By: Jonathan Franzen
- Narrated by: Scott Aiello
- Length: 20 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Louis Holland arrives in Boston in a spring of ecological upheaval (a rash of earthquakes on the North Shore) and odd luck: the first one kills his grandmother. Louis tries to maintain his independence, but falls in love with a Harvard seismologist whose discoveries about the earthquakes' cause complicate everything.
-
-
Compelling Story, Ridiculous Narrator
- By DianeReads on 02-28-16
By: Jonathan Franzen
-
Cannery Row
- By: John Steinbeck
- Narrated by: Jerry Farden
- Length: 5 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Published in 1945, Cannery Row focuses on the acceptance of life as it is: both the exuberance of community and the loneliness of the individual. Drawing on his memories of the real inhabitants of Monterey, California, Steinbeck interweaves the stories of Doc, Henri, Mack and his boys, and the other characters in this world where only the fittest survive, to create a novel that is at once one of his most humorous and most poignant works.
-
-
Five stars with a Caveat
- By Bette on 04-23-12
By: John Steinbeck
-
Middle C
- By: William H. Gass
- Narrated by: Jeremy Arthur
- Length: 16 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Gass’ new novel moves from World War II Europe to a small town in postwar Ohio. In a series of variations, Gass gives us a mosaic of a life - futile, comic, anarchic - arranged in an array of vocabularies, altered rhythms, forms and tones, and broken pieces with music as both theme and structure, set in the key of middle C. It begins in Graz, Austria, 1938. Joseph Skizzen's father, pretending to be Jewish, leaves his country for England with his wife and two children to avoid any connection with the Nazis, who he foresees will soon take over his homeland....
-
-
All the world was a stage. But not for all the wor
- By Darwin8u on 06-07-14
By: William H. Gass
-
All My Friends are Going to be Strangers
- By: Larry McMurtry
- Narrated by: John Randolph Jones
- Length: 8 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Danny Deck - Emma's friend from Terms of Endearment - is a promising young writer losing touch with his talent and drifting from Texas to California because "that's where all the writers are." Set in the early 60s, this is a very funny (and raunchy) satire of life in Texas and California and a true and American portrait of an artist as a young man.
-
-
Favorite audio book ever
- By melanie christner on 06-01-16
By: Larry McMurtry
What listeners say about Cries for Help, Various: Stories
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- divadive
- 04-27-17
Love to hear Mr. Powell read!
This was so much fun! If you've never heard a lecture or reading by him listen to this. You're in for a treat!
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!