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Entrapment, and Other Writings
- Narrated by: Richard Poe, Ramiz Monsef, Richard Ferrone, Nicol Zanzarella, Traber Burns
- Length: 9 hrs and 33 mins
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Publisher's summary
Nelson Algren sought humanity in the urban wilderness of postwar America, where his powerful voice rose from behind the billboards and down tin-can alleys, from among the marginalized and ignored, the outcasts and scapegoats, the punks and junkies, the whores and down-on-their luck gamblers, the punch-drunk boxers and skid-row drunkies and kids who knew they’d never reach the age of 21: all of them admirable in Algren’s eyes for their vitality and no-bullshit forthrightness, their insistence on living, and their ability to find a laugh and a dream in the unlikeliest places.
In Entrapment and Other Writings - containing his unfinished novel and previously unpublished or uncollected stories, poems, and essays - Algren speaks to our time as few of his fellow great American writers of the 1940s and ’50s do, in part because he hasn’t yet been accepted and assimilated into the American literary canon, despite that he is held up as a talismanic figure. “You should not read [Algren] if you can’t take a punch”, Ernest Hemingway declared. “Mr. Algren can hit with both hands and move around and he will kill you if you are not awfully careful.”
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Story
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 Recognitions
- By: William Gaddis
- Narrated by: Nick Sullivan
- Length: 47 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
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Wyatt Gwyon's desire to forge is not driven by larceny but from love. Exactingly faithful to the spirit and letter of the Flemish masters, he produces uncannily accurate "originals" - pictures the painters themselves might have envied. In an age of counterfeit emotion and taste, the real and fake have become indistinguishable; yet Gwyon's forgeries reflect a truth that others cannot touch - cannot even recognize.
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Breathtaking, Dizzying, Stimulating, Funny
- By andrew on 11-17-10
By: William Gaddis
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Ironweed
- By: William Kennedy
- Narrated by: Jonathan Davis
- Length: 8 hrs
- Unabridged
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Francis Phelan, ex-ballplayer, part-time gravedigger, full-time drunk, has hit bottom. Years ago he left Albany in a hurry after killing a scab during a trolley workers' strike; he ran away again after accidentally – and fatally – dropping his infant son. Now, in 1938, Francis is back in town, roaming the old familiar streets with his hobo pal, Helen, trying to make peace with the ghosts of the past and the present.
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Darkly Lovely
- By Michael on 07-22-17
By: William Kennedy
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Humboldt's Gift
- By: Saul Bellow
- Narrated by: Christopher Hurt
- Length: 18 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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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.
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Great Book, Great Reader
- By Scott on 05-10-08
By: Saul Bellow
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Player Piano
- By: Kurt Vonnegut
- Narrated by: Christian Rummel
- Length: 11 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
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Kurt Vonnegut's first novel spins the chilling tale of engineer Paul Proteus, who must find a way to live in a world dominated by a supercomputer and run completely by machines. Paul's rebellion is vintage Vonnegut – wildly funny, deadly serious, and terrifyingly close to reality.
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A Genuine 5-Stars
- By R.A. on 06-07-19
By: Kurt Vonnegut
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Falconer
- By: John Cheever
- Narrated by: Jay Snyder
- Length: 6 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
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A convict named Farragut struggles to remain a man while inside a nightmarish prison. Cheever crafted his most powerful work of fiction out of Farragut's suffering and astonishing salvation.
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Unsettling and beautiful
- By Darwin8u on 01-21-13
By: John Cheever
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The Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby
- By: Tom Wolfe
- Narrated by: Oliver Wyman
- Length: 11 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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"An excellent book by a genius”, said Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., of this now-classic exploration of the 1960s from the founder of New Journalism and author of such influential works as The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test and The Bonfire of the Vanities. Tom Wolfe explores the style and culture of the 1960s in this dynamic collection of essays - originally stand-alone pieces, many of which were published in Esquire magazine - written in his unique, free-flowing style.
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Tom Wolfe the Astute Observor
- By J. Kinkley on 08-29-23
By: Tom Wolfe
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The Lost Weekend
- By: Charles Jackson
- Narrated by: Donald Corren
- Length: 9 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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It is 1936, and on the East Side of Manhattan, a would-be writer named Don Birnam decides to have a drink. And then another, and then another, until he's in the midst of what becomes a five-day binge. A classic tale of one man's struggle with alcoholism, this revolutionary novel remains Charles Jackson's best-known book - a daring autobiographical work that paved the way for contemporary addiction literature.
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What a terrific audiobook!
- By Bill on 11-10-14
By: Charles Jackson
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Death Wish
- By: Brian Garfield
- Narrated by: Oliver Wyman
- Length: 5 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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What do you do when murderers have killed your wife and destroyed your daughter? Until that awful moment Paul Benjamin was an ordinary man - but the unspeakable violence that shattered his life turned him into someone quite different. Someone destiny was shaping into a bizarre instrument of vengeance. This is the novel that spawned the classic movie starring Charles Bronson.
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alonzo
- By lloyd on 10-19-11
By: Brian Garfield