Life Sentences
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Narrated by:
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Linda Emond
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By:
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Laura Lippman
About this listen
But now, after a singularly unsuccessful stab at fiction, Cassandra believes she may have found the story that will enable her triumphant return to nonfiction. When Cassandra was a girl, growing up in a racially diverse middle-class neighborhood in Baltimore, her best friends were all black: elegant, privileged Donna; sharp, shrewd Tisha; wild and worldly Fatima. A fifth girl orbited their world - a shy, quiet, unobtrusive child named Calliope Jenkins - who, years later, would be accused of killing her infant son. Yet the boy's body was never found and Calliope's unrelenting silence on the subject forced a judge to jail her for contempt. For seven years, Calliope refused to speak and the court was finally forced to let her go.
Cassandra believes this still unsolved real-life mystery, largely unknown outside Baltimore, could be her next best seller. But her homecoming and latest journey into the past will not be welcomed by everyone, especially by her former friends, who are unimpressed with Cassandra's success - and are insistent on their own version of their shared history. And by delving too deeply into Calliope's dark secrets, Cassandra may inadvertently unearth a few of her own - forcing her to reexamine the memories she holds most precious, as the stark light of truth illuminates a mother's pain, a father's betrayal . . . and what really transpired on a terrible day that changed not only a family but an entire country.
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The complex, deeply binding relationship between mothers and daughters is brought vividly to life in Katie Hafner's remarkable memoir, an exploration of the year she and her mother, Helen, spent working through, and triumphing over, a lifetime of unresolved emotions. Dreaming of a "year in Provence" with her mother, Katie urges Helen to move to San Francisco to live with her and Zoe, Katie's teenage daughter. Katie and Zoe had become a mother-daughter team, strong enough, Katie thought, to absorb the arrival of a 77-year-old woman set in her ways....
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Listen and be swept away!
- By Barbara Quick on 06-02-22
By: Katie Hafner
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Flesh Wounds
- By: Richard Glover
- Narrated by: Richard Glover
- Length: 7 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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A mother who invented her past, a father who was often absent, a son who wondered if this could really be his family...Richard Glover's favourite dinner-party game is called 'Who's Got the Weirdest Parents?' It's a game he always thinks he'll win. There was his mother, a deluded snob who made up large swathes of her past and who ran away with Richard's English teacher, a Tolkien devotee, nudist and stuffed toy collector.
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Such a Meaningful Reflection
- By Awarenessing on 11-28-15
By: Richard Glover
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Mislaid
- A Novel
- By: Nell Zink
- Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell
- Length: 8 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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Stillwater College in Virginia, 1966. Freshman Peggy, an ingénue with literary pretensions, falls under the spell of Lee, a blue-blooded poet and professor, and they begin an ill-advised affair that results in an unplanned pregnancy and marriage. The couple are mismatched from the start - she's a lesbian, he's gay - but it takes a decade of emotional erosion before Peggy runs off with their three-year-old daughter, leaving their nine-year-old son behind.
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Misbegotten, mishandled, misfired novel
- By Julie W. Capell on 02-07-16
By: Nell Zink
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My Life with Bob
- Flawed Heroine Keeps Book of Books, Plot Ensues
- By: Pamela Paul
- Narrated by: Eileen Stevens, Pamela Paul
- Length: 6 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
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Pamela Paul has kept a single book by her side for 28 years - carried throughout high school and college, hauled from Paris to London to Thailand, from job to job, safely packed away and then carefully removed from apartment to house to its current perch on a shelf over her desk - reliable if frayed, anonymous-looking yet deeply personal. This book has a name: Bob. Bob is Paul's Book of Books, a journal that records every book she's ever read.
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An uncanny mirror and a celebration of book love
- By Cherilyn Parsons on 07-28-19
By: Pamela Paul
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On Turpentine Lane
- A Novel
- By: Elinor Lipman
- Narrated by: Mia Barron
- Length: 9 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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At 32, Faith Frankel has returned to her claustro-suburban hometown, where she writes institutional thank-you notes for her alma mater. It's a peaceful life, really, and surely with her recent purchase of a sweet bungalow on Turpentine Lane, her life is finally on track. Never mind that her fiancé is off on a crowdfunded cross-country walk, too busy to return her texts (but not too busy to post photos of himself with a different woman in every state).
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A little slow...
- By Mary on 06-15-17
By: Elinor Lipman
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Where the Past Begins
- A Writer's Memoir
- By: Amy Tan
- Narrated by: Amy Tan
- Length: 14 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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Moving from her childhood in Oakland and growing up with her Chinese parents through her success as a novelist, Amy Tan delves into her creative interests in music, the paralysis of beginning a new project, journal writing, and travelling. Where the Past Begins chronicles the making of a writer. With characteristic humor and poignant observation, Tan weaves a nontraditional introspective narrative that is as complex and vibrant as this beloved American novelist's fiction.
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Narration Issues
- By Sara on 12-14-17
By: Amy Tan
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Good Riddance
- By: Elinor Lipman
- Narrated by: Mia Barron
- Length: 8 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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Daphne Maritch doesn't quite know what to make of the heavily annotated high school yearbook she inherits from her mother, who held this relic dear. Too dear. The late June Winter Maritch was the teacher to whom the class of '68 had dedicated its yearbook, and in turn she went on to attend every reunion, scribbling notes and observations after each one - not always charitably - and noting who overstepped boundaries of many kinds. In a fit of decluttering (the yearbook did not, Daphne concluded, "spark joy"), she discards it when she moves to a small New York City apartment.
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Not her best.
- By kendall dolphin on 02-14-19
By: Elinor Lipman
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The Mathematician's Shiva
- By: Stuart Rojstaczer
- Narrated by: Angela Brazil, Stephen R. Thorne
- Length: 10 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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When the greatest female mathematician in history passes away, her son, Alexander "Sasha" Karnokovitch, just wants to mourn his mother in peace. But rumor has it the notoriously eccentric Polish émigré has solved one of the most difficult problems in all of mathematics and has spitefully taken the solution to her grave. A ragtag group of mathematicians from around the world descends upon Rachela's shiva, determined to find the proof or solve it for themselves - even if it means prying up the floorboards for notes.
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Great read
- By Lee Crowe on 07-27-15
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The Wrong End of the Table
- A Mostly Comic Memoir of a Muslim Arab American Woman Just Trying to Fit In
- By: Ayser Salman, Reza Aslan - foreword
- Narrated by: Ayser Salman, Assaf Cohen
- Length: 7 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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Part memoir and part how-not-to guide, The Wrong End of the Table is everything you wanted to know about Arabs but were afraid to ask, with chapters such as “Tattoos and Other National Security Risks,” “You Can’t Blame Everything on Your Period; Sometimes You’re Going to Be a Crazy Bitch: and Other Advice from Mom,” and even an open letter to Trump. This is the story of every American outsider on a path to find themselves in a country of beautiful diversity.
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Not what I was looking for
- By Amazon Customer on 09-01-22
By: Ayser Salman, and others
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Babylon Sisters
- By: Pearl Cleage
- Narrated by: Pearl Cleage
- Length: 8 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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Catherine, busy working with refugee and immigrant women through her small firm, Babylon Sisters, has taken on a powerful new client. She doesn't have much time for Phoebe's complicated questions of paternity - that is, until Phoebe's real father, B. J., a renowned investigative reporter, shows up in town to work on a story connected to Catherine.
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Sister Love
- By Florence Graydon on 03-26-21
By: Pearl Cleage
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If It's Not One Thing, It's Your Mother
- By: Julia Sweeney
- Narrated by: Julia Sweeney
- Length: 6 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
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Since her time on Saturday Night Live, where she created the infamous androgynous character "Pat", Julia Sweeney has gone on to establish herself as a witty, captivating performer of one-woman shows, like God Said Ha!, In the Family Way, and Letting Go of God. She gave a TED talk sharing how she explained the birds and the bees to her eight-year-old daughter, Mulan, which ignited an incredible response. Now, when it comes to talking about motherhood, people want to hear what Julia has to say.
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I Love Julia Sweeney
- By Lisa on 04-05-13
By: Julia Sweeney
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Things I've Been Silent About
- By: Azar Nafisi
- Narrated by: Naila Azad
- Length: 13 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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Azar Nafisi, author of the beloved international best seller Reading Lolita in Tehran, now gives us a stunning personal story of growing up in Iran, memories of her life lived in thrall to a powerful and complex mother, against the background of a country's political revolution.
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Family portrait in the frame of history
- By Galina COS on 07-02-16
By: Azar Nafisi
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Pieces of Me
- Rescuing My Kidnapped Daughters
- By: Lizbeth Meredith
- Narrated by: Suzie Althens
- Length: 8 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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In 1994, Lizbeth Meredith said good-bye to her four- and six year-old daughters for a visit with their noncustodial father only to learn days later that they had been kidnapped and taken to their father's home country of Greece. Twenty-nine and just on the verge of making her dreams of financial independence for her and her daughters come true, Lizbeth now faced a $100,000 problem on a $10 an hour budget.
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You really won't want to stop listening!
- By Artist's Eye on 07-17-18
By: Lizbeth Meredith
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Excellent noir novel
- By Kombucha on 02-22-18
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In the summer of 1985, when she was fifteen, Eliza was kidnapped by Walter and held hostage for almost six weeks. He had killed at least one girl and Eliza always suspected he had other victims as well. Now on death row in Virginia for the rape and murder of his final victim, Walter seems to be making a heartfelt act of contrition as his execution nears. Though Eliza wants nothing to do with him, she's never forgotten that Walter was most unpredictable when ignored.
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Excellent read!
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What listeners say about Life Sentences
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall
- Moire
- 03-15-10
Pleasantly Surprised
Linda Eamond is an outstanding narrator and takes the slice of life novel that covers from Baltimore from the 1960's to the present,and presents a riveting story. I was at first dissapointed that I hadn't chosen a 'Tess Monaghan' mystery -- but this was so well written and presented that the slower story line didn't disapoint me.
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8 people found this helpful
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- MK
- 04-14-16
Mixed review
Liked the book a lot. Fortunately I had the kindle edition, too, because the audible edition was absolutely awful. Never again.
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- DLynn
- 10-28-13
Rough Start
Would you say that listening to this book was time well-spent? Why or why not?
It took a little while to get started, but once the story started to roll, it was great.
Did the narration match the pace of the story?
I think the Narrator did a wonderful job!
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4 people found this helpful
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- D. D. Reasons
- 09-25-20
Recent Lippman fan
I enjoyed this story mainly due to the complex female characters created by the author- most suspemse novels with female leads tell the story of 20-somethings who don't have any depth or substance to them and whose biggest accomplishment is finding a suitable lover. These characters are mainly in their forties and fifties, with real world experiences, mistakes in their love lives and careers, tackling middle age in all different ways. This is what kept me interested.
The plot line moved a little slowly, and left me a little unfulfilled at the end, and the weird transition music DID NOT suit the story at all. It is jarring and ridiculous. Please take that out- completely unnecessary.
Otherwise, if you enjoy Laura Lippman novels- her tendency to include an element of race and literature woven into interesting plot lines- you will enjoy this one.
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Overall
- Aninka
- 12-01-10
Good book, Good Reader
Very interesting story based in a richly complicated Baltimore which becomes as much of a character in the book as the protagonist. There is a central mystery that propels the story with a healthy momentum, however by the end we are more interested in the characters and where life has lead them. Interracial friendships and relationships are deftly handled without shying away from their stickiness. The reader has a good, unobtrusive voice. My only complaint is the ridiculous electric keyboard splices between chapters which interrupt the momentum of the book, have nothing to do with the mood of the story and just have to go. I felt bad for the author every time they kicked in. Still, a good book, a good audible experience.
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4 people found this helpful
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Story
- Yennta
- 02-15-12
What a wonderful writer, a wonderful story teller
I love Laura Lippmann and I'm glad she's so prolific. Her plots are interesting, but her characters are totally involving and many layered. Plus she's brave to write on such a touchy subject, race. She's the only "mystery" writer who, for me, approaches Ruth Rendell in terms of craft. Ive liked all the books, both "Tess" and non-Tess (my favorite is still "I'd Know You Anywhere.") Linda Emond is her perfect partner. A subtle, marvelous reader.
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4 people found this helpful
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- Joy
- 02-02-12
Laural Lippman can do no wrong
I am a Lippmanite, except for "Don't Look Back", she has managed to keep me engrossed in everything I have read from her so far. "Life Sentences" is another one of her works of art.
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1 person found this helpful
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Overall
- RKNS
- 05-25-10
Good book; great reader!
Laura Lippman's novel was good, really good, and had I not been driving, I would have read it on the page. But the reader took it to a 5. Linda Emond was perfect; she was interesting, had good variation in the voices and, remarkably, did not feel the need to overact. And she knows how to pronounce English words, something many professional narrators seem singularly unable to do. I'll be buying the book to read for myself, and will be actively searching for more narrations by Linda Emond.
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8 people found this helpful
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Overall
- Alex
- 09-13-09
not worth the time or book credit
this book failed to make me care about the plot and/or characters.
not worth listening to.
want a great read/listen?
try middlesex, water for elephants, riding lessons, flying changes, a thousand splendid suns.
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4 people found this helpful
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- Shaloreial
- 11-20-14
Boring
This story was slow and boring. I like Laura but sometimes she can be long-winded. There's not a lot of dialogue as much as there is summarization of thoughts throughout the whole book. Characters say one sentence, then the rest of the chapter is random thoughts about that sentence.
I also like Linda Emonds voice, it's pleasant. But there are no voice changes between characters. Overall this was a boring story.
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1 person found this helpful