Heading Out to Wonderful
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
Buy for $19.84
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
-
Narrated by:
-
Norman Dietz
-
By:
-
Robert Goolrick
About this listen
In 1948, a mysterious and charismatic man arrives in a small Virginia town carrying two suitcases - one contains his worldly possessions, the other is full of money. He soon inserts himself into the town's daily life, taking a job in the local butcher shop and befriending the owner and his wife and their son. But the passion that develops between the man and the wife of the town's wealthiest citizen sets in motion a series of events that not only upset the quiet town but threaten to destroy both him and the woman.
©2012 Robert Goolrick. Published by arrangement with Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, a division of Workman Publishing Company, Inc. (P)2012 HighBridge Company.Listeners also enjoyed...
-
The End of the World as We Know It
- Scenes from a Life
- By: Robert Goolrick
- Narrated by: Peter Berkrot
- Length: 6 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
For one little boy, however, life had become anything but "normal." To all appearances, he and his family lived an almost idyllic life. The father was a respected professor, the mother a witty and elegant lady, someone everyone loved. They were parents to three bright, smiling children: two boys and a girl. They lived on a sunny street in a small college town nestled neatly in a leafy valley. They gave parties, hosted picnics, went to church - just like their neighbors. To all appearances, their life seemed ideal. But it was, in fact, all appearances.
-
-
Read or Run Away, No Mid-Ground Here.
- By T. Naud on 12-16-19
By: Robert Goolrick
-
The American Fiancee
- A Novel
- By: Eric Dupont
- Narrated by: Jean Brassard
- Length: 26 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Over the course of the 20th century, three generations of the Lamontagnes will weather love, passion, jealousy, revenge, and death. Their complicated family dynamic - as dramatic as Puccini’s legendary opera, Tosca - will propel their rise, and fall, and take them around the world...until they finally confront the secrets of their complicated pasts.
-
-
Worth the 26 hours.
- By Amy Wobarg on 05-08-23
By: Eric Dupont
-
Summer Crossing
- A Novel
- By: Truman Capote
- Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell
- Length: 3 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In late 2004, a trove of Truman Capote's abandoned papers went up for auction at Sotheby's. Included in the lot was the handwritten manuscript of Summer Crossing, a novel Capote began writing in 1943, and continued to tinker with on and off for a decade. Since the time of his death in 1984, Capote scholars and biographers had long believed this manuscript lost, never to be recovered. They were wrong.
-
-
Summer doldrums
- By Marjorie on 02-11-06
By: Truman Capote
-
A Special Place for Women
- By: Laura Hankin
- Narrated by: Laura Hankin
- Length: 10 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It’s a club like no other. Only the most important women receive an invitation. But one daring young reporter is about to infiltrate this female-run secret society, whose bewitching members are caught up in a dark and treacherous business. From the author of Happy and You Know It.
-
-
A Little Far Fetched
- By K. Elle Kinsey on 01-14-24
By: Laura Hankin
-
More Than Riches
- By: Josephine Cox
- Narrated by: Sherry Baines
- Length: 14 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When Rosie’s parents were involved in a train accident, her mother was killed and her father left crippled, unable to earn a living and relying on Rosie to keep the wolf from the door. With her mother gone and her sweetheart Adam away in the army, Rosie is lonely. She eagerly awaits the letters from him, but they never come. As she grows more disillusioned, Adam’s best friend Doug goes out of his way to be charming and attentive. Alone and confused, Rosie blossoms under his evil influence.
-
-
Loved this story!
- By Dogs, Cats, and Kids on 07-26-23
By: Josephine Cox
-
Song of Solomon
- A Novel
- By: Toni Morrison
- Narrated by: Toni Morrison
- Length: 15 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Milkman Dead was born shortly after a neighborhood eccentric hurled himself off a rooftop in a vain attempt at flight. For the rest of his life he, too, will be trying to fly. As Morrison follows Milkman from his rustbelt city to the place of his family’s origins, she introduces an entire cast of strivers and seeresses, liars and assassins, the inhabitants of a fully realized Black world.
-
-
Maybe a beautiful story, This author should never narrate
- By Student on 01-02-20
By: Toni Morrison
-
The End of the World as We Know It
- Scenes from a Life
- By: Robert Goolrick
- Narrated by: Peter Berkrot
- Length: 6 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
For one little boy, however, life had become anything but "normal." To all appearances, he and his family lived an almost idyllic life. The father was a respected professor, the mother a witty and elegant lady, someone everyone loved. They were parents to three bright, smiling children: two boys and a girl. They lived on a sunny street in a small college town nestled neatly in a leafy valley. They gave parties, hosted picnics, went to church - just like their neighbors. To all appearances, their life seemed ideal. But it was, in fact, all appearances.
-
-
Read or Run Away, No Mid-Ground Here.
- By T. Naud on 12-16-19
By: Robert Goolrick
-
The American Fiancee
- A Novel
- By: Eric Dupont
- Narrated by: Jean Brassard
- Length: 26 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Over the course of the 20th century, three generations of the Lamontagnes will weather love, passion, jealousy, revenge, and death. Their complicated family dynamic - as dramatic as Puccini’s legendary opera, Tosca - will propel their rise, and fall, and take them around the world...until they finally confront the secrets of their complicated pasts.
-
-
Worth the 26 hours.
- By Amy Wobarg on 05-08-23
By: Eric Dupont
-
Summer Crossing
- A Novel
- By: Truman Capote
- Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell
- Length: 3 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In late 2004, a trove of Truman Capote's abandoned papers went up for auction at Sotheby's. Included in the lot was the handwritten manuscript of Summer Crossing, a novel Capote began writing in 1943, and continued to tinker with on and off for a decade. Since the time of his death in 1984, Capote scholars and biographers had long believed this manuscript lost, never to be recovered. They were wrong.
-
-
Summer doldrums
- By Marjorie on 02-11-06
By: Truman Capote
-
A Special Place for Women
- By: Laura Hankin
- Narrated by: Laura Hankin
- Length: 10 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It’s a club like no other. Only the most important women receive an invitation. But one daring young reporter is about to infiltrate this female-run secret society, whose bewitching members are caught up in a dark and treacherous business. From the author of Happy and You Know It.
-
-
A Little Far Fetched
- By K. Elle Kinsey on 01-14-24
By: Laura Hankin
-
More Than Riches
- By: Josephine Cox
- Narrated by: Sherry Baines
- Length: 14 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When Rosie’s parents were involved in a train accident, her mother was killed and her father left crippled, unable to earn a living and relying on Rosie to keep the wolf from the door. With her mother gone and her sweetheart Adam away in the army, Rosie is lonely. She eagerly awaits the letters from him, but they never come. As she grows more disillusioned, Adam’s best friend Doug goes out of his way to be charming and attentive. Alone and confused, Rosie blossoms under his evil influence.
-
-
Loved this story!
- By Dogs, Cats, and Kids on 07-26-23
By: Josephine Cox
-
Song of Solomon
- A Novel
- By: Toni Morrison
- Narrated by: Toni Morrison
- Length: 15 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Milkman Dead was born shortly after a neighborhood eccentric hurled himself off a rooftop in a vain attempt at flight. For the rest of his life he, too, will be trying to fly. As Morrison follows Milkman from his rustbelt city to the place of his family’s origins, she introduces an entire cast of strivers and seeresses, liars and assassins, the inhabitants of a fully realized Black world.
-
-
Maybe a beautiful story, This author should never narrate
- By Student on 01-02-20
By: Toni Morrison
-
East of Eden
- By: John Steinbeck
- Narrated by: Richard Poe
- Length: 25 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This sprawling and often brutal novel, set in the rich farmlands of California's Salinas Valley, follows the intertwined destinies of two families - the Trasks and the Hamiltons - whose generations helplessly reenact the fall of Adam and Eve and the poisonous rivalry of Cain and Abel.
-
-
Why have I avoided this Beautiful Book???
- By Kelly on 03-25-17
By: John Steinbeck
-
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
- By: Maya Angelou
- Narrated by: Maya Angelou
- Length: 10 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Sent by their mother to live with their devout, self-sufficient grandmother in a small Southern town, Maya and her brother, Bailey, endure the ache of abandonment and the prejudice of the local “powhitetrash.” At eight years old, Maya is attacked by a man many times her age - and has to live with the consequences for a lifetime. But years later, she learns about love for herself and the kindness of others, her own strong spirit, and the ideas of great authors.
-
-
Emotional & Powerful
- By Miss Toni on 06-30-13
By: Maya Angelou
-
All the Little Hopes
- By: Leah Weiss
- Narrated by: Kate Forbes
- Length: 11 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Deep in the tobacco land of North Carolina, nothing's been the same since the boys shipped off to war and worry took their place. Thirteen-year-old Lucy Brown is precocious and itching for adventure. Then Allie Bert Tucker wanders into town, an outcast with a puzzling past, and Lucy figures the two of them can solve any curious crime they find - just like her hero, Nancy Drew. Their chance comes when a man goes missing, a woman stops speaking, and an eccentric gives the girls a mystery to solve that takes them beyond the ordinary.
-
-
Leah Weiss is a gifted author
- By MelissaFBrown on 08-03-21
By: Leah Weiss
-
The Judge's Wife
- By: Ann O'Loughlin
- Narrated by: Alana Kerr Collins
- Length: 8 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
With her whole life ahead of her, beautiful young Grace’s world changes forever when she’s married off to a much older judge. Soon, feeling lonely and neglected, Grace meets and falls in love with an Indian doctor, Vikram—he’s charming, thoughtful, and kind, everything her husband is not. But this is 1950s Ireland, and when she falls pregnant, the potential scandal must be dealt with.
-
-
Sweet story
- By CATonn on 09-10-23
By: Ann O'Loughlin
-
An American Marriage (Oprah’s Book Club)
- A Novel
- By: Tayari Jones
- Narrated by: Sean Crisden, Eisa Davis
- Length: 8 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Newlyweds Celestial and Roy are the embodiment of both the American Dream and the New South. He is a young executive, and she is an artist on the brink of an exciting career. But as they settle into the routine of their life together, they are ripped apart by circumstances neither could have imagined. Roy is arrested and sentenced to 12 years for a crime Celestial knows he didn't commit. Though fiercely independent, Celestial finds herself bereft and unmoored, taking comfort in Andre, her childhood friend, and best man at their wedding.
-
-
So many “WTF” moments
- By Kristen R King on 05-04-18
By: Tayari Jones
-
Beloved
- By: Toni Morrison
- Narrated by: Toni Morrison
- Length: 12 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Sethe was born a slave and escaped to Ohio, but eighteen years later she is still not free. Sethe has too many memories of Sweet Home, the beautiful farm where so many hideous things happened. And Sethe’s new home is haunted by the ghost of her baby, who died nameless and whose tombstone is engraved with a single word: Beloved.
-
-
Author-read Books
- By John R Williford on 07-14-06
By: Toni Morrison
-
The Music of Bees
- A Novel
- By: Eileen Garvin
- Narrated by: Thérèse Plummer
- Length: 10 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Forty-four-year-old Alice Holtzman is stuck in a dead-end job, bereft of family, and now reeling from the unexpected death of her husband. Alice has begun having panic attacks whenever she thinks about how her life hasn't turned out the way she dreamed. Even the beloved honeybees she raises in her spare time aren't helping her feel better these days.
-
-
A little too many political agendas
- By Mike Thompson on 05-26-21
By: Eileen Garvin
-
Bastard Out of Carolina
- By: Dorothy Allison
- Narrated by: Elizabeth Evans
- Length: 11 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Greenville County, South Carolina, is a wild, lush place that is home to the Boatwright family - a tight-knit clan of rough-hewn, hard- drinking men who shoot up each other's trucks, and indomitable women who get married young and age too quickly. At the heart of this story is Ruth Anne Boatwright, known simply as Bone, a bastard child who observes the world around her with a mercilessly keen perspective.
-
-
Not for the Faint of Heart
- By Carolyn on 12-31-12
By: Dorothy Allison
-
The Making of Her
- A Novel
- By: Bernadette Jiwa
- Narrated by: Aoife McMahon
- Length: 9 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Dublin 1996. Joan Egan lives an enviable life. She and her husband, Martin, and daughter, Carmel, are thriving in Dublin at the dawn of an economic boom. But everything changes when Joan receives a letter from Emma, the daughter who she and Martin gave up for adoption thirty years before, asking for a life-or-death favor.
-
-
No one really knows what makes a person
- By Shelly Alli on 11-14-24
By: Bernadette Jiwa
-
Revival Season
- By: Monica West
- Narrated by: Joniece Abbott-Pratt
- Length: 8 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Every summer, fifteen-year-old Miriam Horton and her family pack themselves tight in their old minivan and travel through small southern towns for revival season: the time when Miriam’s father - one of the South’s most famous preachers - holds massive healing services for people desperate to be cured of ailments and disease. But, this summer, the revival season doesn’t go as planned, and after one service in which Reverend Horton’s healing powers are tested like never before, Miriam witnesses a shocking act of violence that shakes her belief in her father - and her faith.
-
-
Empathy-Evoking and Heartfelt
- By PR on 11-08-21
By: Monica West
-
When We Were the Kennedys
- A Memoir from Mexico, Maine
- By: Monica Wood
- Narrated by: Monica Wood
- Length: 7 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
1963, Mexico, Maine. The Wood family is much like its close, Catholic, immigrant neighbors, all dependent on a father's wages from the Oxford Paper Company. Until the sudden death of Dad, when Mum and the four closely connected Wood girls are set adrift. Funny and to-the-bone moving, When We Were the Kennedys is the story of how this family saves itself, at first by depending on Father Bob, Mum's youngest brother, a charismatic Catholic priest who feels his new responsibilities deeply.
-
-
Cried and laughed.
- By Nancy N Barcelo on 07-03-15
By: Monica Wood
-
Rush Home Road
- By: Lori Lansens
- Narrated by: Ruby Dee
- Length: 6 hrs and 27 mins
- Abridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
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."
-
-
filthy language and violent content
- By Anna on 12-16-11
By: Lori Lansens
Critic reviews
Related to this topic
-
Paradise
- By: Toni Morrison
- Narrated by: Toni Morrison
- Length: 15 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In Paradise - her first novel since she was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature - Toni Morrison gives us a bravura performance. As the book begins deep in Oklahoma early one morning in 1976, nine men from Ruby (pop. 360), in defense of "the one all-black town worth the pain", assault the nearby Convent and the women in it. From the town's ancestral origins in 1890 to the fateful day of the assault, Paradise tells the story of a people ever mindful of the relationship between their spectacular history and a void.
-
-
MORRISON AT HER MOST COMPLEX
- By Kennedi Hill on 11-07-19
By: Toni Morrison
-
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
- By: Maya Angelou
- Narrated by: Maya Angelou
- Length: 10 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Sent by their mother to live with their devout, self-sufficient grandmother in a small Southern town, Maya and her brother, Bailey, endure the ache of abandonment and the prejudice of the local “powhitetrash.” At eight years old, Maya is attacked by a man many times her age - and has to live with the consequences for a lifetime. But years later, she learns about love for herself and the kindness of others, her own strong spirit, and the ideas of great authors.
-
-
Emotional & Powerful
- By Miss Toni on 06-30-13
By: Maya Angelou
-
Rush Home Road
- By: Lori Lansens
- Narrated by: Ruby Dee
- Length: 6 hrs and 27 mins
- Abridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
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."
-
-
filthy language and violent content
- By Anna on 12-16-11
By: Lori Lansens
-
The Plague of Doves
- By: Louise Erdrich
- Narrated by: Peter Francis James, Kathleen McInerney
- Length: 11 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The unsolved murder of a farm family haunts the small, white, off-reservation town of Pluto, North Dakota. The vengeance exacted for this crime and the subsequent distortions of truth transform the lives of Ojibwe living on the nearby reservation and shape the passions of both communities for the next generation.
-
-
Avoid this Plague
- By Andre on 05-16-08
By: Louise Erdrich
-
Looking for Salvation at the Dairy Queen
- By: Susan Gregg Gilmore
- Narrated by: Tavia Gilbert
- Length: 6 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the latest novel from Susan Gregg Gilmore, sometimes you have to return to the place where you began to arrive at the place where you belong.
-
-
Not what I expected but........
- By Coach "J" on 03-11-16
-
The Star Side of Bird Hill
- By: Naomi Jackson
- Narrated by: Robin Miles
- Length: 7 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Two sisters, ages 10 and 16, are exiled from Brooklyn to Bird Hill in Barbados, after their mother can no longer care for them. The young Phaedra and her older sister, Dionne, live, for the summer of 1989, with their grandmother, Hyacinth, a midwife and practitioner of the local spiritual practice of obeah. Dionne spends the summer in search of love, testing her grandmother's limits, and wanting to go home. Phaedra explores Bird Hill, where her family has lived for generations.
-
-
My absolute favorite book of all time
- By Eme on 07-16-15
By: Naomi Jackson
-
Paradise
- By: Toni Morrison
- Narrated by: Toni Morrison
- Length: 15 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In Paradise - her first novel since she was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature - Toni Morrison gives us a bravura performance. As the book begins deep in Oklahoma early one morning in 1976, nine men from Ruby (pop. 360), in defense of "the one all-black town worth the pain", assault the nearby Convent and the women in it. From the town's ancestral origins in 1890 to the fateful day of the assault, Paradise tells the story of a people ever mindful of the relationship between their spectacular history and a void.
-
-
MORRISON AT HER MOST COMPLEX
- By Kennedi Hill on 11-07-19
By: Toni Morrison
-
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
- By: Maya Angelou
- Narrated by: Maya Angelou
- Length: 10 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Sent by their mother to live with their devout, self-sufficient grandmother in a small Southern town, Maya and her brother, Bailey, endure the ache of abandonment and the prejudice of the local “powhitetrash.” At eight years old, Maya is attacked by a man many times her age - and has to live with the consequences for a lifetime. But years later, she learns about love for herself and the kindness of others, her own strong spirit, and the ideas of great authors.
-
-
Emotional & Powerful
- By Miss Toni on 06-30-13
By: Maya Angelou
-
Rush Home Road
- By: Lori Lansens
- Narrated by: Ruby Dee
- Length: 6 hrs and 27 mins
- Abridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
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."
-
-
filthy language and violent content
- By Anna on 12-16-11
By: Lori Lansens
-
The Plague of Doves
- By: Louise Erdrich
- Narrated by: Peter Francis James, Kathleen McInerney
- Length: 11 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The unsolved murder of a farm family haunts the small, white, off-reservation town of Pluto, North Dakota. The vengeance exacted for this crime and the subsequent distortions of truth transform the lives of Ojibwe living on the nearby reservation and shape the passions of both communities for the next generation.
-
-
Avoid this Plague
- By Andre on 05-16-08
By: Louise Erdrich
-
Looking for Salvation at the Dairy Queen
- By: Susan Gregg Gilmore
- Narrated by: Tavia Gilbert
- Length: 6 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the latest novel from Susan Gregg Gilmore, sometimes you have to return to the place where you began to arrive at the place where you belong.
-
-
Not what I expected but........
- By Coach "J" on 03-11-16
-
The Star Side of Bird Hill
- By: Naomi Jackson
- Narrated by: Robin Miles
- Length: 7 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Two sisters, ages 10 and 16, are exiled from Brooklyn to Bird Hill in Barbados, after their mother can no longer care for them. The young Phaedra and her older sister, Dionne, live, for the summer of 1989, with their grandmother, Hyacinth, a midwife and practitioner of the local spiritual practice of obeah. Dionne spends the summer in search of love, testing her grandmother's limits, and wanting to go home. Phaedra explores Bird Hill, where her family has lived for generations.
-
-
My absolute favorite book of all time
- By Eme on 07-16-15
By: Naomi Jackson
-
Mudbound
- By: Hillary Jordan
- Narrated by: Ezra Knight, Kate Forbes, Joseph Collins, and others
- Length: 9 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
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.
-
-
May this South never rise again.
- By Betty on 03-25-12
By: Hillary Jordan
-
Sula
- By: Toni Morrison
- Narrated by: Toni Morrison
- Length: 5 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Nel and Sula's devotion is fierce enough to withstand bullies and the burden of a dreadful secret. It endures even after Nel has grown up to be a pillar of the black community and Sula has become a pariah. But their friendship ends in an unforgivable betrayal—or does it end? Terrifying, comic, ribald and tragic, Sula is a work that overflows with life.
-
-
Good against evil and a riotous story to boot
- By Karen on 04-11-11
By: Toni Morrison
-
Fallen Angels
- By: Patricia Hickman
- Narrated by: John McDonough
- Length: 10 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
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.
-
-
Touching
- By Christina on 11-11-04
By: Patricia Hickman
-
Liberating Paris
- A Novel
- By: Linda Bloodworth Thomason
- Narrated by: Cynthia Darlow
- Length: 12 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Woodrow McIlmore, the town's golden boy and local gynecologist, is married to his beautiful high school sweetheart, Milan, and seems by all appearances to be leading the perfect life with his two children and extended family and friends. But when Wood's daughter announces that she is smitten with a college classmate and intends to marry him, her parents are stunned.
-
-
Deeply moving, a great listen
- By Cynthia on 11-27-05
-
The Improper Life of Bezellia Grove
- A Novel
- By: Susan Gregg Gilmore
- Narrated by: Tavia Gilbert
- Length: 7 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Bezellia Grove was born into the most prominent of Nashville families, but that didn’t stop her from having an alcoholic mother and a distant, adulterous father. Her nanny, Maizelle, and Nathaniel, the handyman, are the people who have taken care of her since she can remember. She considers them family, but her parents just consider them servants because they are Black. When Bezellia has a clandestine romance with Nathaniel's son, Whites and Blacks unite in fury at the young couple.
-
-
light southern fiction
- By suzanne on 02-08-13
-
The Twelve-Mile Straight
- A Novel
- By: Eleanor Henderson
- Narrated by: Allyson Johnson
- Length: 17 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Cotton County, Georgia, 1930: In a house full of secrets, two babies - one light-skinned, the other dark - are born to Elma Jesup, a white sharecropper's daughter. Accused of her rape, field hand Genus Jackson is lynched and dragged behind a truck down the Twelve-Mile Straight, the road to the nearby town. In the aftermath, the farm's inhabitants are forced to contend with their complicity in a series of events that left a man dead and a family irrevocably fractured.
-
-
Great read!
- By S. Clay on 11-01-17
-
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
- By: Betty Smith
- Narrated by: Kate Burton
- Length: 14 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A moving coming-of-age story set in the 1900s, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn follows the lives of 11-year-old Francie Nolan, her younger brother Neely, and their parents, Irish immigrants who have settled in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn. Johnny Nolan is as loving and fanciful as they come, but he is also often drunk and out of work, unable to find his place in the land of opportunity.
-
-
Book: flawless. SKIP THE RECORDED INTRO!!
- By Wild Wise Woman on 09-04-11
By: Betty Smith
-
Annie Dunne
- By: Sebastian Barry
- Narrated by: Caroline Lennon
- Length: 7 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It is 1959 in Wicklow, Ireland, and Annie and her cousin Sarah are living and working together to keep Sarah’s small farm running. Suddenly, Annie’s young niece and nephew are left in their care. Unprepared for the chaos that two children inevitably bring, but nervously excited nonetheless, Annie finds the interruption of her normal life and her last chance at happiness complicated further by the attention being paid to Sarah by a local man with his eye on the farm.
-
-
Splendid
- By Shady on 06-21-23
By: Sebastian Barry
-
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
-
This Side of the Sky
- By: Elyse Singleton
- Narrated by: Myra Taylor, Sharon Washington, Richard Ferrone
- Length: 11 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Award-winning journalist Elyse Singleton delivers what Essence calls “a gem - the perfect book to curl up with.”
Best friends Lilian and Myraleen, two African American women from rural Mississippi, travel to Europe during World War II to act as members of the Women’s Army Corps. During this time of segregation and destruction, both women discover love and heartbreak, triumph and defeat.
-
-
A Breath of Fresh Air
- By Adina Andreu on 07-19-12
By: Elyse Singleton
-
The Blind Assassin
- By: Margaret Atwood
- Narrated by: Margot Dionne
- Length: 18 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
For the past twenty-five years, Margaret Atwood has written works of striking originality and imagination. In The Blind Assassin, she stretches the limits of her accomplishments as never before, creating a novel that is entertaining and profoundly serious. The novel opens with these simple, resonant words: "Ten days after the war ended, my sister drove a car off the bridge." They are spoken by Iris, whose terse account of her sister Laura's death in 1945 is followed by an inquest report proclaiming the death accidental.
-
-
Good book, TERRIBLE audio!
- By Whitney on 04-27-09
By: Margaret Atwood
-
The Moonflower Vine
- A Novel
- By: Jetta Carleton
- Narrated by: Natalie Ross
- Length: 12 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
On a farm in western Missouri, during the first half of the twentieth century, Matthew and Callie Soames create a life for themselves and raise four headstrong daughters. Jessica will break their hearts. Leonie will fall in love with the wrong man. Mary Jo will escape to New York. And wild child Mathy’s fate will be the family’s greatest tragedy. Over the decades they will love, deceive, comfort, forgive - and, ultimately, they will come to cherish all the more fiercely the bonds of love that hold the family together.
-
-
I didn't want it to end!!!
- By Amanda H. on 01-20-21
By: Jetta Carleton
What listeners say about Heading Out to Wonderful
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Joni
- 07-22-15
Greatly disturbed by involving a 5-6 year old in adulterous secrets and witnessing murder/suicide.
A young child witnessing an adulterous affair and told to keep it secret as well as witnessing a suicide/murder is a cruel and not entertaining read. This was definitely not cool!!
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Susan
- 08-23-16
Conflicted!
The narrator was outstanding, and I knew something horrible would happen...as it does in Goolrick's books. The three star review is because I wanted to know MORE...more about what happened, more of everything about everyone, and most assuredly, I wanted more reasons for everything. Sigh.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Gen
- 02-13-15
Narration ruined the book!
Would you try another book from Robert Goolrick and/or Norman Dietz?
Norman's throaty wet voice completely ruined this for me. It was unbearable to listen to.
Any additional comments?
Comments for the book- excluding narration:
What a beautiful, understated prose style that was! The words brought every scene into focus, like a movie progressing right in front of my eyes. Many of the book's characters were extremely likable, like sweet Alma that is always right (!), the boy that loved Charlie so much, the old twin ladies and of course Charlie. So what give the book only 3.5 stars? Because of a couple of things. There were many pages of introspection from the narrator, who you dont know who it is until the very end. Those passages made no sense and would have been better off cut. The book left loose ends, like where did Charlie and his money came from? Why did he run away? We never find out. As for the climax of the story... I felt very unprepared for it. Surprise is one thing. But there were no indications that would have lead us to believe what Charlie did. Especially in front of Sam, traumatizing him for life. The one thing to take away is the beautiful prose that transported to you seamlessly into that era, that town, that life... even for a little while.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Piper Lucio
- 02-19-24
Sad
Slow & depressing. I wanted it to get to the point it seemed to drag on . And then ending was sad
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- MissSusie66
- 09-13-12
Not an easy read but beautifully written
Robert Goolrick is a great writer he knows how to turn a phrase and his descriptions are always lush. I read the Reliable Wife when it first came out it was an odd story but well written and a book that stuck with me much longer than I expected it to and I actually liked The Reliable Wife the longer I was away from it and I think this one may end up the same way. So, I had high hopes for this book expecting and getting Goolricks fantastic writing but the story was a much slower simmer than I expected it to be, it made me sit on the edge of my seat not from the story really, but in the waiting for the other shoe to drop, you just know something bad is coming.
I am not sure how I felt about Charlie dragging this little boy along with him on his trysts, I don’t understand why he took him along it’s not like it was his child. I think what he put the little boy through was worse than anything else Charlie did. Another story from this author that I think will stick with me awhile and probably will end up liking more the farther away I am from it. But I think that is the genius of Goolrick he is an amazing writer but his books are never easy but they will touch you and stay with you even if you didn’t totally love the book.
Norman Dietz is the narrator of this one and I’m just not sure what I thought of him; all of his voices sounded like old men, including the little boy and the women. But he fit the book well, so I am not saying he was awful it was just his variations on voices weren’t that different. I hope that makes sense.
If you haven’t read Goolrick’s biography – “The End of the World as we Know It” you won’t see how biographical Goolrick’s work is. I think to really “get” his fiction you should read his biography.
3 ½ Stars
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
4 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Alma del Sol
- 09-11-12
Not enough for me
Would you try another book from Robert Goolrick and/or Norman Dietz?
Not sure that I would. I was left wanting to know more about the characters and what impact their history made on their life decisions. There was no impact in this story so it was a bit dry for me.
Has Heading Out to Wonderful turned you off from other books in this genre?
no
What didn’t you like about Norman Dietz’s performance?
I think the narrator was fine.
Any additional comments?
It is not a book that I would listen to again and I have sadly almost forgotten all of it.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Joanne Singh
- 07-17-12
Disappointed
Would you try another book from Robert Goolrick and/or Norman Dietz?
No
Any additional comments?
Overly descriptive of things not relevant to the story. Very slow and boring.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Sandra
- 02-13-13
Didn't see anything "Wonderful" about it
This book wasn’t for you, but who do you think might enjoy it more?
Maybe a therapist to figure out why someone would write something like this
What could Robert Goolrick have done to make this a more enjoyable book for you?
Left out the kid viewing the sex, and the bloody murder scene
What did you like about the performance? What did you dislike?
Nothing, everything
What reaction did this book spark in you? Anger, sadness, disappointment?
Amazement that I listened to the whole thing. I kept thinking that it would get better, instead it got worse.
Any additional comments?
I think I have probably said too much already
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Jim D.
- 10-02-13
Way less than Wonderful!
What disappointed you about Heading Out to Wonderful?
The storyline was horrible, disturbing, sick and twisted. It left me wondering why the author, who can definitely write, would choose to tell a story that was so dark and then name it Heading Out to Wonderful. None of the characters, with the possible exception of the little boy, were likable nor were they fully developed. The ending was graphic and gruesome and I don't think I will ever look at a Meat Butcher the same again.
What was most disappointing about Robert Goolrick’s story?
Involving a little boy in the sick and twisted tale of the main characters' affair with a dim-witted married woman. None of the characters in the story were likable and therefore why read about them?
How could the performance have been better?
The narration was fine, it was the story that was awful.
You didn’t love this book... but did it have any redeeming qualities?
No
Any additional comments?
Steer clear!
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- DC Reader
- 08-07-22
A gripping mountain tale
The story plays out like a tall tale from Virginia's Piedmont. Full of grit and beauty, sorrow and cruelty. And love that will never be allowed to bloom. There's no shortage of drama, yet it's nuanced by deftly drawn characters, full of goodness, yet marred by flaws. The narration is true to the people drawn by the author. I really enjoyed listening to Heading Out to Wonderful. I also loved one of the author's other novels, A Reliable Wife.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!