
Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk
A Novel
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Narrated by:
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Xe Sands
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By:
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Kathleen Rooney
About this listen
Library Journal Editors' Pick
It's the last day of 1984, and 85-year-old Lillian Boxfish is about to take a walk. As she traverses a grittier Manhattan, a city anxious after an attack by a still-at-large subway vigilante, she encounters bartenders, bodega clerks, chauffeurs, security guards, bohemians, criminals, children, parents, and parents to be in surprising moments of generosity and grace. While she strolls Lillian recalls a long and eventful life that included a brief reign as the highest paid advertising woman in America - a career cut short by marriage, motherhood, divorce, and a breakdown.
A love letter to city life - however shiny or sleazy - Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk by Kathleen Rooney paints a portrait of a remarkable woman across the canvas of a changing America: from the Jazz Age to the onset of the AIDS epidemic, the Great Depression to the birth of hip-hop.
©2016 Kathleen Rooney (P)2017 Macmillan AudioListeners also enjoyed...
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- By: Beth Morrey
- Narrated by: Harriet Walter
- Length: 9 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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The world has changed around 79-year-old librarian Millicent Carmichael, a.k.a. Missy. Though quick to admit that she often found her roles as a housewife and mother less than satisfying, Missy once led a bustling life driven by two children, an accomplished and celebrated husband, and a Classics degree from Cambridge. Now, her husband is gone, her daughter is estranged after a shattering argument, and her son has moved to his wife's native Australia, taking Missy's beloved only grandchild half-a-world away.
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Emotional roller coaster!!!
- By Feviegirl on 05-14-20
By: Beth Morrey
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The Dollhouse Academy
- A Novel
- By: Margarita Montimore
- Narrated by: Brittany Pressley, Xe Sands
- Length: 10 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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Ivy Gordon is living on borrowed time. For the past eighteen years, she has been the most famous star at the Dollhouse Academy, the elite boarding school and talent incubator that every aspiring performer dreams of attending. But now, at age thirty-four, she is tired of pretending everything is fine. In secret diary entries, Ivy begins to reveal the truth of her life at the Dollhouse: strange medical exams, mysterious supplements, and something unspeakable that’s left Ivy terrified and feeling like a prisoner.
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Intriguing and sinister
- By Copy That Clicks on 04-29-25
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Miss Benson's Beetle
- A Novel
- By: Rachel Joyce
- Narrated by: Juliet Stevenson
- Length: 12 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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It is 1950. London is still reeling from World War II, and Margery Benson, a schoolteacher and spinster, is trying to get through life, surviving on scraps. One day, she reaches her breaking point, abandoning her job and small existence to set out on an expedition to the other side of the world in search of her childhood obsession: an insect that may or may not exist - the golden beetle of New Caledonia. When she advertises for an assistant to accompany her, the woman she ends up with is the last person she had in mind.
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A well-written panorama of human tragedy
- By Film Fan on 07-03-21
By: Rachel Joyce
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The Shell Seekers
- By: Rosamunde Pilcher
- Narrated by: Hayley Atwell
- Length: 19 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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At the end of a long and useful life, Penelope Keeling's prized possession is The Shell Seekers, painted by her father, and symbolizing her unconventional life, from bohemian childhood to wartime romance. When her grown children learn their grandfather's work is now worth a fortune, each has an idea as to what Penelope should do. But as she recalls the passions, tragedies, and secrets of her life, she knows there is only one answer...and it lies in her heart.
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Narrator Speed
- By TB on 01-18-18
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An Unfinished Love Story
- A Personal History of the 1960s
- By: Doris Kearns Goodwin
- Narrated by: Doris Kearns Goodwin, Bryan Cranston
- Length: 17 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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An Unfinished Love Story: A Personal History of the 1960s by Doris Kearns Goodwin, one of America’s most beloved historians, artfully weaves together biography, memoir, and history. She takes you along on the emotional journey she and her husband, Richard (Dick) Goodwin embarked upon in the last years of his life.
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A Great Listen
- By Bill on 04-20-24
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The Borrowed Life of Frederick Fife
- A Novel
- By: Anna Johnston
- Narrated by: Tim Carroll
- Length: 10 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
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Frederick Fife was born with an extra helping of kindness in his heart. If he borrowed your car, he’d return it washed with a full tank of gas. The problem is there’s nobody left in Fred’s life to borrow from. At eighty-two, he’s desperately lonely, broke, and on the brink of homelessness. But Fred’s luck changes when, in a bizarre case of mistaken identity, he takes the place of grumpy Bernard Greer at the local nursing home. Now he has warm meals in his belly and a roof over his head—as long as his poker face is in better shape than his prostate and that his look-alike never turns up.
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Somewhat engaging but predictable
- By RSNYC on 10-15-24
By: Anna Johnston
delightful stroll through new york
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One of the best audiobooks I have listened to in ages
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Charming and brilliant career woman of the 40’s thru her 80’s
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Enjoyed unique perspective and telling
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It wasn't until after I finished the novel that I realize that Kathleen Rooney's inspiration for this character was a real person. Like her fictional counterpart, Margaret Fishback was a poet and copywriter for R.H. Macys during the 1930's, becoming highly successful in both roles.
As she makes her way through the streets of the city, our protagonist recalls her best moments: the publication of her first book, meeting Max (the man she eventually marries), giving birth to her son. And her challenges: struggling to adjust to married life, going through a severe bout of depression, her painful divorce, losing her best friend.
Watching a character grow old is so interesting because it underlines the fact that getting older doesn't erase the essence of who we are. That's why for me, experiencing Lillian's zest for life, her sense of curiosity and sharp mind, and seeing how consistent those traits remained throughout her life, was so very refreshing.
Rooney's writing is witty and illuminating and I admire her ability to write a novel so intimate that at times it almost reads like a memoir. To me Lillian Boxfish belongs in the canon of characters representing a generation of women that were so ahead of their times they were feminist icons before that was even a thing.
I became a fan of Xe Sans listening to her narration of Euphoria and The Diver's Clothes Lie Empty. After you've been listening to audiobooks for a while, you can tell when a narrator has done her homework and has prepared well to perform a story rather that just "read" it. I think Sans’s evocative, sultry voice was the perfect match for this novel. The conversation between the author and the narrator at the end of the audio, was a unexpected but wonderful bonus!
Lillian takes a stroll down memory lane!
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Fabulous story
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Narrator
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Wonderful book!
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performance excellence!
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Solvitur Ambulando
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