Festival Days
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Narrated by:
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Suehyla El-Attar
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By:
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Jo Ann Beard
About this listen
A searing and exhilarating new collection from the award-winning author of The Boys of My Youth and In Zanesville, who “honors the beautiful, the sacred, and the comic in life” (Sigrid Nunez, National Book Award-winner for The Friend).
A New York Times Notable Book
A New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice
A Boston Globe and LitHub Best Book of the Year
When “The Fourth State of Matter”, her now famous piece about a workplace massacre at the University of Iowa, was published in The New Yorker, Jo Ann Beard immediately became one of the most influential writers in America, forging a path for a new generation of young authors willing to combine the dexterity of fiction with the rigors of memory and reportage, and in the process extending the range of possibility for the essay form.
Now, with Festival Days, Beard brings us the culmination of her groundbreaking work. In these nine pieces, she captures both the small luminous moments of daily existence and those instants when life and death hang in the balance, ranging from the death of a beloved dog to a relentlessly propulsive account of a New York artist trapped inside a burning building, as well as two triumphant, celebrated pieces of short fiction.
Here is an unforgettable collection destined to be embraced and debated by listeners and writers, teachers and students. Anchored by the title piece - a searing journey through India that brings into focus questions of mortality and love - Festival Days presents Beard at the height of her powers, using her flawless prose to reveal all that is tender and timeless beneath the way we live now.
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Critic reviews
"Ferocious...Beard [is] a towering talent.... Perhaps instead of an essayist we should think of her as a poet-naturalist, wedding intuition and observation, and forming from this union something unaccountably yet undeniably real...a book as forceful as it is fine, leaving us both awed and unsettled.” (Leah Hager Cohen, New York Times Book Review)
"Beautiful.... Beard’s power comes from phrasings and insights that aren’t just screaming for likes. Few writers are so wise and self-effacing and emotionally honest all in one breath.... Over the course of nine beguiling pieces - which seamlessly meld observation and imagination - she effects an intimacy that makes us want to sit on the rug and listen.” (Sara Lippmann, Washington Post)
"[Beard’s] books are worth the wait. A master of sensory details, she also writes with humor, melancholy and a love of animals that never borders on saccharine.... In her work, even everyday moments gleam with significance.” (Michele Filgate, Los Angeles Times)
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A Three Dog Life: A Memoir
- By: Abigail Thomas
- Narrated by: Abigail Thomas
- Length: 4 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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When Abigail Thomas’s husband, Rich, was hit by a car, his brain shattered. Subject to rages, terrors, and hallucinations, he must live the rest of his life in an institution. He has no memory of what he did the hour, the day, the year before. This tragedy is the ground on which Abigail had to build a new life. How she built that life is a story of great courage and great change, of moving to a small country town, of a new family composed of three dogs, knitting, and friendship, of facing down guilt and discovering gratitude.
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Eloquent & Honest
- By Sara on 09-30-15
By: Abigail Thomas
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The Saturday Night Ghost Club
- A Novel
- By: Craig Davidson
- Narrated by: Corey Brill
- Length: 5 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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Growing up in 1980s Niagara Falls - a seedy but magical, slightly haunted place - Jake Baker spends most of his time with his uncle Calvin, a kind but eccentric enthusiast of occult artifacts and conspiracy theories. The summer Jake turns 12, he befriends a pair of siblings new to town, and so Calvin decides to initiate them all into the "Saturday Night Ghost Club." But as the summer goes on, what begins as a seemingly light-hearted project may ultimately uncover more than any of its members had imagined.
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Emotionless
- By Noura on 10-18-20
By: Craig Davidson
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The Folded Leaf
- By: William Maxwell
- Narrated by: Mark Boyett
- Length: 9 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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Here is a classic novel from one of our most honored writers - the author of such acclaimed works as So Long, See You Tomorrow and All the Days and Nights. The Folded Leaf is the serenely observed yet deeply moving story of two boys finding one another in the Midwest of the 1920s, when childhood lasted longer than it does today and even adults were more innocent of what life could bring.
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Midwestern Misfits
- By David on 03-17-15
By: William Maxwell
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The Time Traveler's Wife
- By: Audrey Niffenegger
- Narrated by: Fred Berman, Phoebe Strole
- Length: 17 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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Clare and Henry have known each other since Clare was six and Henry was 36. They were married when Clare was 23 and Henry was 31. Impossible but true, because Henry is one of the first people diagnosed with Chrono-Displacement Disorder: periodically his genetic clock resets and he finds himself misplaced in time, pulled to moments of emotional gravity from his life, past and future. His disappearances are spontaneous, his experiences unpredictable, alternately harrowing and amusing.
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One of my favorite books
- By Joey on 01-13-08
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The Ninth Metal
- The Comet Cycle, Book 1
- By: Benjamin Percy
- Narrated by: Julia Whelan
- Length: 10 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
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The town of Northfall, Minnesota, will never be the same. Meteors cratered hardwood forests and annihilated homes, and among the wreckage a new metal was discovered. This “omnimetal” has properties that make it world-changing as an energy source…and a weapon. John Frontier returns for his sister’s wedding to find his family embroiled in a cutthroat war to control mineral rights and mining operations. His father rightly suspects foreign leaders and competing corporations of sabotage, but the greatest threat to his legacy might be the US government.
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Everyone Will Enjoy This Except My Mother
- By Liv Rosin on 06-04-21
By: Benjamin Percy
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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
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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.
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I sure tried.
- By A.C. CALLOWAY on 01-28-24
By: Joy Williams
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Nothing with Strings
- NPR's Beloved Holiday Stories
- By: Bailey White
- Narrated by: Lorna Raver
- Length: 4 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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The mundane and the miraculous stand side by side in these sketches and stories of Southern small-time life by the author of Quite a Year for Plums.
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A real jewel.
- By Mary on 12-31-08
By: Bailey White
What listeners say about Festival Days
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Dee Garza
- 06-26-22
Well written, but…
This was beautifully written. It was also remarkably hard to follow. It was not until the last chapters that things got clearer, but when it ended I felt I would have to read it from the beginning again. No thanks.
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- Sue Crilly
- 07-15-22
Tragically gorgeous essays
Stellar essays by Jo Ann Beard weave their way in and out of sequential time. They will have you crying and smiling.
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- Tom
- 12-02-22
She sucks you in.
I started this book a few months back. I was in Hospital at the time and listening to her write about a man suffering in a hospital didn’t interest me at all so I moved on to a spy novel or something.
Returning to it yesterday, I was caught up in her prose and could barely put it down. Regardless of her subject, even when she directly tells the Reader that writing isn’t writing, Beard forces you inside her, sharing her thoughts, her feelings. This collection is definitely worth your time. Give it a try.
Four Stars. ****
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- Sharlotte
- 07-21-21
Loved It!
Some of these were really, really good! I thoroughly enjoyed this book and the narration was lively and augmented the stories.
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12 people found this helpful
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- P. Bergh
- 08-23-21
Moments of brilliance
I found the first three stories to be exceptional. Others seemed kind of experimental. The last story, Festival Days, was well written, but felt like a long stream of consciousness. In fairness, I’m not a big short story fan, but again I thought the first three stories are very good.
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21 people found this helpful
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- Eve612
- 06-29-21
An Incredible Way to Spend a Summer Afternoon
I love this book! The stories were incredible, though I think they started with the wrong one (do not let it dissuade you from going to the second), and the narration was amazing. The imagery Beard uses is mind-boggling, the depths of the characters is spellbinding, and her syntax is no less than delicious.
If you are looking for a book you can get lost in, characters you can relate to, Festival Days is the book for you. Warning: each story's conclusion is not gentle, does not segue nicely into the next one, and is sometimes jarring, but it will capture you.
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19 people found this helpful
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- Kenda
- 05-10-21
Wonderful
Sad, moving and so worth the listen.
Tears and a few chuckles. Jo Ann Beard is a truly talented weaver of words.
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9 people found this helpful
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- Anonymous User
- 07-23-22
A Pure Delight
Some of the best descriptive fiction I’ve encountered - perfectly placed among memorable and unique stories. This book was excellently read as well. I will seek out both this author and this narrator in future.
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