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Fair and Tender Ladies
- Narrated by: Kate Forbes
- Length: 13 hrs and 23 mins
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Publisher's summary
Twelve-year-old Ivy writes her first letter to a Dutch pen pal, who never replies. She also writes many more to her sister Sylvaney, who is mentally disabled and illiterate. Gaining more from writing than receiving any replies, Ivy continues a colorful stream of letters during her long life. Through births and deaths, marriages and funerals, the decades of Ivy's life are captured in a rich dialect that carries the sounds and sights of the Appalachians in each syllable.
Lee Smith's genius lies in her ability to create the landscape of a character's mind with economy and grace. Perfectly complementing Smith's talent, narrator Kate Forbes provides a unique voice for Ivy.
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Critic reviews
"Readers will be thoroughly captivated by Ivy Rowe, the narrator of this epistolary novel, and will come to the end of her story with a pang of regret. Smith has produced her best work here, creating a fully rounded heroine and other vivid characters who inhabit Virginia's Appalachia region....In the old tradition of oral storytelling, Smith has fashioned a dramatic, magical, poignantly true-to-life tale." (Publishers Weekly)
"Ivy writes with a verve and immediacy which prove that her creator, Lee Smith, is a storyteller supreme." (School Library Journal)
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- Length: 8 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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This is a novel in the guise of the tape-recorded recollections of a black woman who has lived 110 years, who has been both a slave and a witness to the black militancy of the 1960s. Miss Jane Pittman has "endured," has seen almost everything and foretold the rest.
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At great listen
- By Susan on 11-11-08
By: Ernest J. Gaines
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Mrs. Mike
- By: Benedict Freedman, Nancy Freedman
- Narrated by: Kirsten Potter
- Length: 11 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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A moving love story set in the Canadian wilderness, Mrs. Mike is a classic tale that has enchanted millions of readers worldwide. It brings the fierce, stunning landscape of Canada to life and tenderly evokes the love that blossoms between Sergeant Mike Flannigan and beautiful young Katherine Mary O'Fallon.
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How could I have missed this all these years?
- By Dale C. Farran on 01-30-10
By: Benedict Freedman, and others
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Mudbound
- By: Hillary Jordan
- Narrated by: Ezra Knight, Kate Forbes, Joseph Collins, and others
- Length: 9 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
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Hillary Jordan's mesmerizing debut novel won the Bellwether Prize for fiction. A powerful piece of Southern literature, Mudbound takes on prejudice in its myriad forms on a Mississippi Delta farm in 1946. City girl Laura McAllen attempts to raise her family despite questionable decisions made by her husband. Tensions continue to rise when her brother-in-law and the son of a family of sharecroppers both return from WWII as changed men bearing the scars of combat.
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May this South never rise again.
- By Betty on 03-25-12
By: Hillary Jordan
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Fallen Angels
- By: Patricia Hickman
- Narrated by: John McDonough
- Length: 10 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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During the Great Depression, Jeb Nubey is running from the law when he meets three abandoned children. With nowhere else to go the group passes a stormy night in a comforting church. When they are discovered, a case of mistaken identity ensues. It seems the congregation has been waiting for their new pastor, a widower with three kids. Looks like more trouble for Jeb. Yet the chance for a steady job and three squares a day is too good to turn down.
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Touching
- By Christina on 11-11-04
By: Patricia Hickman
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Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All
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- Narrated by: Barbara McCulloh
- Length: 49 hrs and 54 mins
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Allan Gurganus's Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All became an instant classic upon its publication. Critics and fans alike fell in love with the voice of 99-year-old Confederate widow Lucy Marsden, one of the most entertaining and loquacious heroines in American literature. Lucy married at the turn of the 20th century, when she was 15 and her husband was 50. If Colonel William Marsden was a veteran of the "War for Southern Independence", Lucy became a "veteran of the veteran" with a unique perspective on Southern history and Southern manhood.
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Dated.
- By edie butler on 04-06-21
By: Allan Gurganus
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Laddie
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- By: Gene Stratton-Porter
- Narrated by: Laurie Klein
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This is a captivating, good-humored look at family life in a small farming community in Indiana in the early 1900s.
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An American Classic
- By Clint on 07-04-10
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Rush Home Road
- By: Lori Lansens
- Narrated by: Ruby Dee
- Length: 6 hrs and 27 mins
- Abridged
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When a 70-year-old woman finds a five-year-old girl abandoned on her doorstep, she is thrust into a sorrowful past that can only be conquered with the help of the girl who opened her memory - the very girl she is trying to save. This first novel, according to author Jacquelyn Mitchard, is one of "exquisite power, honesty, and conviction...quite nearly without flaws."
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filthy language and violent content
- By Anna on 12-16-11
By: Lori Lansens
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Delta Wedding
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- By: Eudora Welty
- Narrated by: Sally Darling
- Length: 12 hrs
- Unabridged
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Performance
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Story
Set on the Mississippi Delta in 1923, this story captures the mind and manners of the Fairchilds, a large aristocratic family, self-contained and elusive as the wind. The vagaries of the Fairchilds are keenly observed, and sometimes harshly judged, by nine-year-old Laura McRaven, a Fairchild cousin who takes The Yellow Dog train to the Delta for Dabney Fairchild’s wedding.
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Soul Food
- By Carolyn on 03-06-13
By: Eudora Welty
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Rapture of Canaan
- By: Sheri Reynolds
- Narrated by: Alyssa Bresnahan
- Length: 9 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
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Novelist Sheri Reynolds weaves lyrical prose and folksy dialogue into her spellbinding tales. The Rapture of Canaan, a New York Times best-seller, is the moving story of a teenaged girl clashing with her harshly controlled world. Growing up in a closed religious community deep in the rural South, 15-year-old Ninah Huff painstakingly and obediently follows her church’s many rules—she knows that public humiliation follows the smallest transgression
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Really good story
- By mctoria on 08-15-24
By: Sheri Reynolds
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Angel Sister
- A Novel
- By: Ann H. Gabhart
- Narrated by: Dianna Dorman
- Length: 13 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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It is 1936 and Kate Merritt works hard to keep her family together. Her father has slipped into alcoholism, her mother is trying to come to grips with their dire financial situation, and her sisters seem to remain blissfully oblivious to all of it. Kate could never have imagined that a dirty, abandoned little girl named Lorena Birdsong would be just what her family needs.
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Beautiful angel story
- By Kindle Customer on 02-24-24
By: Ann H. Gabhart
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ending
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On a bright June day in 1965, a dozen girls - classmates at a Blue Ridge women's college - launch a ramshackle raft on a trip down the Mississippi. Their journey, inspired by Huckleberry Finn, is duly reported in the Paducah, Kentucky newspaper. 35 years later, four of the "girls" reunite to cruise the river again. This time, it's on the luxury steamboat The Belle of Natchez. This time, when they reach New Orleans, they'll give the River the ashes of a fifth rafter: Margaret ("Baby") Ballou.
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Ear candy book
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The Prettiest Star
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At 18, Brian, like so many other promising young gay men, arrived in New York City without much more than a love for the freedom and release from his past that it promised. But within six short years, AIDS would claim his lover, his friends, and his future. With nothing left in New York but memories of death, Brian decides to write his mother a letter asking to come back to the place, and family, he was once so desperate to escape.
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important to remember
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What listeners say about Fair and Tender Ladies
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall
- Kathryn
- 01-13-08
Profoundly moving
I have just finished listening to this remarkable audiobook and I am so tenderly moved. I want to grieve over losing Ivy, as her life came quietly to an end. No, her life itself wasn’t quiet- it was far from it – but I fell as though I have lost a friend. The fact that the narrator, Kate Forbes, read with a perfect Appalachian accent (the book takes place within an hour of where I now live), helps make it even more authentic. This book, told entirely by letters written by Ivy Rowe, gives a true voice to the Appalachian life that exists still today. This is a wonderful book, rich and full, and I highly recommend it to anyone to read. A real piece of Americana and excellent writing. It made me laugh many times (I rarely laugh out loud while reading or listening), and I shed a tear or two as well. Lee Smith is from Grundy, VA (near my hometown), and I do hope one day to be able to meet her. She is a magnificent writer, in my opinion!
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16 people found this helpful
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Overall
- Anonymous User
- 06-15-09
slow start, great finish
I had a little difficult maintaining my interest in the beginning, but about a 3rd of the way in I was hooked! The descriptions were so vivid, I felt like I was there with Ivy, that I knew her. By the end, I really cared about her.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Elizabeth
- 04-29-13
Remarkable reader, great book
I think I might listen to this book again just to hear Kate Forbes read it. She's THAT good. And the characters in this novel will make your heart bleed and then smile and then bleed again. I love epistolary novels, and this is one to savor.
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Overall
- Kathy
- 01-31-08
One of the Best of the Best
I loved this book. It is the story of Ivy Rowe, a young girl growing up in Appalachia, and the world through her eyes as she matures into a young woman. She makes the world she lives in and the people in it come alive. You can almost smell the pine trees. Such a captivating story. I will listen to this one over again and again and recommend to my friends.
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5 people found this helpful
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
- N. Rogers
- 08-28-13
A Glimpse Into a Unique Time and Place
Fair and Tender Ladies was pure pleasure to listen to as an audiobook. The mountain dialect and soft tones performed exquisitely by narrator, Kate Forbes, brought this gentle, captivating story to life, literally transporting me to a world that existed from early 20th century Appalachia through the 1970s. I vicariously experienced some of the immense changes in American society during this time period and was able to glimpse the profound impacts that two major wars and the growth of the coal industry had on these proud mountain people. Their life was hard, but for the first time I began to understand their fierce loyalty to this beautiful but inhospitable land. I watched as their unique culture was disrupted and ultimately destroyed by “progress.”
This is a character-driven novel. It flows lazily through the long life of Ivy Rowe and is written entirely in her letters to various family members and friends. Her tone and language develop as she grows from a very young child into an old “mountain woman.” Yet throughout it all, Ivy retains her deep love of home and family. She never loses that basic core of who she is and what Sugar Fork and its people mean to her. I respected her tremendously, and listening to her story enriched me.
Fair and Tender Ladies is not an adventure story, and it will be a disappointment to readers expecting fast-moving plot. I’m not sure how most men will relate to it since this story is told entirely through Ivy’s unabashed perspective, and she is most definitely a woman; there is no narrator to filter and objectify Ivy’s observations and remarks. But for me that was the charm of this book; Ivy is wonderful if the reader can accept her as she is. She is funny, foolish, courageous, and wise--a delightful combination of them all. I wish she were a real person so I could spend more time listening to her and learning from her. I am extremely happy that I purchased this audiobook and took the time to hear Ivy’s story. I am better for the experience and somehow feel uplifted.
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- Amazon Customer
- 02-01-19
Wonderful Book
I absolutely loved this book! Lee Smith did a wonderful job bringing her characters to life! There is alot of emotion with this book.
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- Susie Q
- 04-14-17
What a Beautiful Story. How I love Ivy!
Would you listen to Fair and Tender Ladies again? Why?
I'm sure I will. I already miss Ivy Rowe.
What was one of the most memorable moments of Fair and Tender Ladies?
When I started this book I thought it may be a snoozer but it became addicting. Ivy's hillbilly language was getting on my nerves but as the story unfolded I got used to it, She also read a lot which improved her speech. This may not bother anyone else and it's essential to the story. The family is in a poor, rural area about the turn of the 20th century. Anyway, I fell in love with this woman. She is at once simple and intelligent, optimistic yet realistic, and so very loving and loyal.
What does Kate Forbes bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?
Kate Forbes was absolutely perfect for Ivy. Her accent and inflections are spot on. I feel a lot of the impact of her words would be lost in print. That's another reason I love listening to books. And good narration is critical to a successful production.
If you could rename Fair and Tender Ladies, what would you call it?
Fair and Tender Lady :)
Any additional comments?
Ivy's religion is the country and all things beautiful to her. I loved this element of the story. She is so pure of heart, but not a goody-goody. I adored this book.
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- Mary Martinson
- 11-25-20
Timeless
I read this twice 15 years apart and loved it as much listening the second time as reading the first time. The main character is a person I'd like to know. She makes poor choices but doesn't let those choices identify her. She grows and faces adversity well. I am not one who normally underlines passages, but I seriously wanted to this time (except it's hard when listening).
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- Maureen
- 09-13-11
Fabulous Book
I absolutely was absorbed into the letters and didn't want this to end. Excellent narrator, I highly recommend this book!
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- Sharron
- 02-14-13
Entertaining
Ivy is an inspiration to all women. Her letters describe growing up poor in an isolated rural area without feeling sorry for herself. Just the opposite! Her observations of the countryside and people around her are delightful.
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