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Fine Just The Way It Is
- Wyoming Stories 3
- Narrated by: Will Patton
- Length: 6 hrs and 47 mins
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Publisher's summary
2009 Audie Award Finalist for Short Stories/Collections
Returning to the territory of "Brokeback Mountain" (in her first volume of Wyoming Stories) and Bad Dirt, National Book Award and Pulitzer Prize winner Annie Proulx delivers a stunning and visceral new collection. In Fine Just the Way It Is, she has expanded the limits of the form. Her stories about multiple generations of Americans struggling through life in the West are a ferocious, dazzling panorama of American folly and fate.
"Every ranch...had lost a boy," thinks Dakotah Hicks as she drives through "the hammered red landscape" of Wyoming, "boys smiling, sure in their risks, healthy, tipped out of the current of life by liquor and acceleration, rodeo smashups, bad horses, deep irrigation ditches, high trestles, tractor rollovers and 'unloaded' guns. Her boy, too...The trip along this road was a roll call of grief."
Proulx's characters try to climb out of poverty and desperation but get cut down as if the land itself wanted their blood. Deeply sympathetic to the men and women fighting to survive in this harsh place, Proulx turns their lives into fiction with the power of myth -- and leaves the reader in awe.
The winner of two O. Henry Prizes, Annie Proulx has been anthologized in nearly every major collection of great American stories. Her bold, inimitable language, her exhilarating eye for detail and her dark sense of humor make this a profoundly compelling collection.
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The irresistible tale of 19-year-old Martha Lessen, a female horse whisperer trying to make a go of it in a man's world. It was thought that the only way to break a horse was to buck the wild out of it, and broken ribs and tough falls just went with the job. But over several long, hard winter months, many of the townsfolk in this remote county of eastern Oregon witness Martha's way of talking in low, sweet tones to horses believed beyond repair---and getting miraculous, almost immediate results.
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Simple, Honest, Wonderful
- By Julie W. Capell on 11-08-09
By: Molly Gloss
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Battleborn
- By: Claire Vaye Watkins
- Narrated by: Ali Ahn, Morgan Hallett, Laura Knight Keating, and others
- Length: 8 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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Like the work of Cormac McCarthy, Denis Johnson, Richard Ford, and Annie Proulx, Battleborn represents a near-perfect confluence of sensibility and setting, and the introduction of an exceptionally powerful and original literary voice. In each of these ten unforgettable stories, Claire Vaye Watkins writes her way fearlessly into the mythology of the American West, utterly reimagining it.
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Wonderful magnificent stories beautifully told
- By Pedro Ramirez on 12-03-15
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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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Ava's Man
- By: Rick Bragg
- Narrated by: Rick Bragg
- Length: 5 hrs and 26 mins
- Abridged
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With the same emotional generosity and effortlessly compelling storytelling that made All Over But the Shoutin’ a beloved bestseller, Rick Bragg continues his personal history of the Deep South. This time he’s writing about his grandfather Charlie Bundrum, a man who died before Bragg was born but left an indelible imprint on the people who loved him. Drawing on their memories, Bragg reconstructs the life of an unlettered roofer who kept food on his family’s table through the worst of the Great Depression
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Deeply moving
- By Kate on 08-12-03
By: Rick Bragg
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The Winemaker's Daughter
- By: Timothy Egan
- Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell
- Length: 12 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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When Brunella Cartolano visits her father on the family vineyard in the basin of the Cascade Mountains, she's shocked by the devastation caused by a four-year drought. Passionate about the Pacific Northwest ecology, Brunella, a cultural impact analyst, is embroiled in a battle to save the Seattle waterfront from redevelopment and to preserve a fisherman's livelihood. But when a tragedy among fire-jumpers results from a failure of the water supply - her brother Niccolo is among those lost - Brunella finds herself with another mission.
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Obviously Not Read By A Washington Resident
- By John C Schuyler on 04-24-19
By: Timothy Egan
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Ceremony
- By: Leslie Marmon Silko
- Narrated by: Pete Bradbury
- Length: 9 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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Leslie Marmon Silko's sublime Ceremony is almost universally considered one of the finest novels ever written by an American Indian. It is the poetic, dreamlike tale of Tayo, a mixed-blood Laguna Pueblo and veteran of World War II. Tormented by shell shock and haunted by memories of his cousin who died in the war, Tayo struggles on his impoverished reservation. After turning to alcohol to ease his pain, he strives for a better understanding of who he is.
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Worth a re-read
- By Mariah on 02-02-09
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The Long Valley
- By: John Steinbeck, John H. Timmerman - introduction
- Narrated by: Holter Graham
- Length: 8 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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A Penguin Classic. First published in 1938, this volume of stories collected with the encouragement of his longtime editor Pascal Covici serves as a wonderful introduction to the work of Nobel Prize winner John Steinbeck. Set in the beautiful Salinas Valley of California, where simple people farm the land and struggle to find a place for themselves in the world, these stories reflect Steinbeck’s characteristic interests: The tensions between town and country, laborers and owners, past and present.
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Generally Good Stories, Some are Great
- By Michael on 06-18-13
By: John Steinbeck, and others
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Falling from Horses
- By: Molly Gloss
- Narrated by: David Aaron Baker
- Length: 11 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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>In 1938, 19-year-old cowboy Bud Frazer sets his sights on becoming a stunt rider in the movies. Fantasizing about rubbing shoulders with the great screen cowboys of his youth, he leaves his home in Echol Creek, Oregon, and heads for Hollywood. On the long bus ride south, Bud meets a young woman who also harbors dreams of making it in the movies, though not as a starlet but as a writer, a real writer.
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Good
- By MJ Strub on 10-26-23
By: Molly Gloss
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Prodigal Summer
- By: Barbara Kingsolver
- Narrated by: Barbara Kingsolver
- Length: 15 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
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Prodigal Summer weaves together three stories of human love within a larger tapestry of lives in southern Appalachia. At the heart of these intertwined narratives is a den of coyotes that have recently migrated into the region. Deanna Wolfe, a reclusive wildlife biologist, watches them from an isolated mountain cabin where she is caught off-guard by Eddie Bondo, a young hunter who comes to invade her most private spaces and her solitary life.
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Amazing!
- By Lily on 10-12-08
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A Sweetness to the Soul
- By: Jane Kirkpatrick
- Narrated by: Susan Denaker
- Length: 17 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
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Based on historical characters and events, A Sweetness to the Soul recounts the captivating story of young, spirited Oregon pioneer Jane Herbert who at the age of 12 faces a tragedy that begins a life-long search for forgiveness and love. In the years that follow, young Jane finds herself involved in an unusual and touching romance with a dreamer 16 years her senior, struggles to make peace with an emotionally distant mother, and fights to build a family of her own.
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Unexpected Treat
- By Sarah D. on 12-15-11
By: Jane Kirkpatrick
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A Death in Kitchawank, and Other Stories
- By: T. C. Boyle
- Narrated by: T. C. Boyle
- Length: 9 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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Few authors write with such sheer love of story and language as T. C. Boyle, and that is nowhere more evident than in his inventive, wickedly funny, and always entertaining short stories. Here are 14 new tales previously unpublished in book form. By turns mythic and realistic, farcical and tragic, ironic and moving, Boyle's stories have mapped a wide range of human emotions. The stories here reflect his maturing themes.
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Mixed Bag
- By AuntGert on 09-22-20
By: T. C. Boyle
What listeners say about Fine Just The Way It Is
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Richard T. Larkins
- 02-11-23
Will patten is the best
Stories were a little hard to take at times but the descriptions of geography made the listen worth it
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- C Jones
- 01-03-10
Review of "Fine Just The Way It Is"
Proulx does not disappoint and the narrator is excellent. Highly enjoyable and engaging stories with great presentation by the reader.
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2 people found this helpful
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- matt m
- 09-10-23
The best one so far
If you like Proulx, or the West, or Wyoming, or the human condition on the outskirts of society, this is a great set of stories.
My favorite out of the series (which are not connected as far as I can tell) by far.
The last story’s ending brought me to tears of sorrow & joy at the same time.
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- Louis
- 07-01-12
Even the Devil can’t homestead in Wyoming.
These eight stories are a good companion for a long drive. They make you grateful for a full tank of gas, a bottle of water and a cell phone with a least a single bar.
"The Sagebrush Kid" is a sad, sweet tale of childless parents. "Deep-Blood-Greasy-Bowl" chronicles an ancient Indian tribe whose future relies on slaughtering a herd of bison. "I've Always Loved This Place" and "Swamp Mischief" are satirical pieces set in Hell. The remaining four stories are family tales, ranging from the days before statehood to the present. They are stories of loss, coping, continuity, legacy and erasure which anchor the others.
This is not a loose collection swept together by an author looking for a quick buck. “Fine, Just the Way It Is” is about the land, not the people. Even the Devil can’t homestead in Wyoming.
* * *
Will Patton, as usual, is terrific. My only fault with the collection is the lack of a pause between the stories. They just run up on each other. The effect of a half page of white space at the end of a story is not rendered, and that's a flaw in the production.
* * *
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11 people found this helpful
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- Anon
- 07-02-10
Compelling tales of hard lives
It took me a couple of tries to get into this book. The stories are harsh and bare and gritty, like the Western landscape. Life is extremely hard, mistakes cost dearly, and nobody lives happily ever after. Having said that, I did not find the stories depressing. Lifelike would be a better word. Once I caught on, I found the book compelling.
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5 people found this helpful
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- Gatster
- 10-25-14
Lousy chapter breaks
Any additional comments?
The chapter breaks in this book are awful making it very difficult to go to a specific short story when you want to.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Joshua
- 05-13-17
beautifully written and horribly depressing
she is one hell of a writer, no question about that period but this set of stories is as Bleak as anything she has ever written, minus any trace of wit or Redemption. all and all I would skip this unless you want to feel hopeless and alone
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1 person found this helpful
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- Amazon Customer
- 04-20-21
Dark and depressing
Although the writing and the stories are very good, I did not finish this book as I found it to be too dark and depressing.
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