Listen Mama
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Narrated by:
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JD Jackson
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By:
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M.S.P. Williams
About this listen
Through a series of heart-breaking and poignant letters, come explore the 20-year journey of a child longing for the love of his mentally ill mother while facing seemingly insurmountable odds. Witness Manny's transformation in this coming of age story of a forgotten and disfigured child, born into spirit-crushing poverty in Houston, Texas, and thrust into adulthood all too soon. Crying out to the world for understanding and forgiveness, Manny battles the silent and treacherous enemy of mental illness in his mother's often erratic and sometimes terrifying behavior as he ultimately becomes her caretaker and guardian while also parenting his four younger siblings. Experience this inspirational soon-to-be modern classic of loss, faith, love, and redemption that is guaranteed to bring forth both tears and laughter, heartache and happiness, as it captures your imagination, ignites your soul, and soon has you resisting to pause, breathlessly waiting to discover what happens next.
©2021 M.S.P. Williams (P)2021 M.S.P. WilliamsListeners also enjoyed...
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Great book
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Who Asked You?
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Overall
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Performance
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Betty Jean already has her hands full when her grown daughter leaves her two young sons in her care. In between dealing with her other adult children, two opinionated sisters, an ill husband, and her own postponed dreams - BJ still manages to hold down a job delivering room service at a hotel. Her son Dexter is about to be paroled from prison; Quentin, the family success, can’t be bothered to lend a hand; and taking care of two lively grandsons is the last thing BJ thinks she needs. But who asked her?
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brillant
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Objects in the Mirror
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Overall
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Performance
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Life - if you've ever thought you might be doing it wrong, you're not alone. Objects in the Mirror: Thoughts on a Perfect Life from an Imperfect Person is a collection of essays that explores what it means to be alive. Like Polaroids framing the years of a troubadour and family man afflicted with an excess of self-awareness, these are stories without any clear good guys or bad guys. Instead, in each of these vignettes you will find dysfunctional humans trying to do their best and bouncing off each other in the process.
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My favourite storyteller
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By: Stephen Kellogg
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The Awkward Thoughts of W. Kamau Bell
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Overall
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You may know W. Kamau Bell from his new Emmy-nominated hit show on CNN, United Shades of America. Or maybe you've read about him in The New York Times, which called him "the most promising new talent in political comedy in many years." Or maybe from The New Yorker fawning over his brand of humor writing: "Bell's gimmick is intersectional progressivism: he treats racial, gay, and women's issues as inseparable."
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White Woman Raising a Black Son
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Critic reviews
2022 Audie Awards Finalist for Best Audiobook Memoir
2022 BookLife/Publishers Weekly Selfies US Book Award Finalist for Best Memoir
2022 Indie Book Awards Finalist for Best African American Literary Nonfiction
"As dramatic as it is heartbreaking." (Kirkus Reviews)
"Young adult (and many an adult) readers will find Listen Mama a thoroughly absorbing story." (Midwest Book Review)
"Even though the book has heartbreak, it has happiness and humor. YA readers will love this moving memoir." (ReaderViews, Reviewer's Choice Silver Award)
"Listen Mama authentically details the sliding scale of hopes and frustration." (IndieReader, starred review)
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The Todd Glass Situation
- A Bunch of Lies about My Personal Life and a Bunch of True Stories about My 30-Year Career in Standup Comedy
- By: Todd Glass, Jonathan Grotenstein
- Narrated by: Oliver Wyman
- Length: 6 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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Growing up in a Philadelphia suburb in the 1970s was an easy life. Well, easy as long as you didn't have dyslexia or ADD, or were a Jew. And once you added gay into the mix, life became more difficult. So Todd Glass decided to hide the gay part, no matter how comic, tragic, or comically tragic the results. Now, Todd has written an open, honest, and hilarious memoir in an effort to help everyone - young and old, gay and straight - breathe a little more freely.
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Worth It
- By Heather on 11-17-14
By: Todd Glass, and others
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Pain Killer
- A Memoir of Big League Addiction
- By: Brantt Myhres, Michael Landsberg - foreword
- Narrated by: Brantt Myhres, Michael Landsberg
- Length: 10 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
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Brantt Myhres wasn't around for the birth of his daughter. Myhres had played for seven different NHL teams, and had made millions. But he'd been suspended four times, all for drug use, and he had partied his way out of the league. This is his story, in his own words, of how he fought his way out of minor hockey into the big league, but never left behind the ghosts of a bleak and troubled childhood.
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I love hockey.
- By Brew2go on 06-14-21
By: Brantt Myhres, and others
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The Pursuit of Happyness (Abridged)
- By: Chris Gardner
- Narrated by: Andre Blake
- Length: 5 hrs and 42 mins
- Abridged
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At the age of 20, Chris Gardner arrived in San Francisco to pursue a promising career in medicine. However, he surprised everyone and himself by setting his sights on the competitive world of high finance. Yet no sooner had he landed an entry-level position at a prestigious firm, Gardner found himself caught in a web of incredibly challenging circumstances that left him part of the city's working homeless with his toddler son.
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Very Good Story!
- By Lito Da Critic on 06-02-06
By: Chris Gardner
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Between Friends
- By: Debbie Macomber
- Narrated by: Amy Tallmadge
- Length: 9 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
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Jillian Lawton and Lesley Adamski. Two girls from very different backgrounds become best friends in the turbulent '60s, but their circumstances and choices - and their mistakes - take them in opposite directions. Lesley stays in their hometown. She marries young, living a life defined by the demands of small children, never enough money, and an unfaithful husband. Jill lives those years on a college campus shaken by the Vietnam War, and then as an idealistic young lawyer in New York City. But they always remain friends.
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good story crappy format!
- By Denise on 06-12-18
By: Debbie Macomber
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Dirty Daddy
- The Chronicles of a Family Man Turned Filthy Comedian
- By: Bob Saget
- Narrated by: Bob Saget
- Length: 6 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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Millions of viewers know and love Bob Saget from his role as the sweetly neurotic father on the smash hit Full House, and as the charming wisecracking host of America's Funniest Home Videos. And then there are the legions of fans who can't get enough of his scatological, out-of-his-mind stand-up routines, comedy specials, and outrageously profane performances in such shows as HBO's Entourage and the hit documentary The Aristocrats.
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Meh to the 2nd Power
- By Hilary on 06-30-14
By: Bob Saget
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The Girls Who Went Away
- The Hidden History of Women Who Surrendered Children for Adoption in the Decades Before Roe v. Wade
- By: Ann Fessler
- Narrated by: Coleen Marlo
- Length: 12 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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In this deeply moving and myth-shattering work, Ann Fessler brings out into the open for the first time the astonishing untold history of the million and a half women who surrendered children for adoption due to enormous family and social pressure in the decades before Roe v. Wade.
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Sad but True ... and Helpful
- By Kim Kavanagh on 01-05-17
By: Ann Fessler
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How to Slowly Kill Yourself and Others in America
- Essays
- By: Kiese Laymon
- Narrated by: Kevin Free
- Length: 3 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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Author and essayist Kiese Laymon is one of the most unique, stirring, and powerful new voices in American social and cultural commentary. How to Slowly Kill Yourself and Others in America is a collection of Laymon's essays, touching on subjects ranging from family, race, violence, and celebrity to music, writing, and coming of age in the rural Mississippi Gulf Coast. Laymon's writing is unflinchingly honest, while also being smart, lacerating, and unexpectedly funny.
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I'm Stunned By This Collection
- By Rachel on 10-17-17
By: Kiese Laymon
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In the Shadow of the Valley
- A Memoir
- By: Bobi Conn
- Narrated by: Bobi Conn
- Length: 10 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
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Bobi Conn was raised in a remote Kentucky holler in 1980s Appalachia. She remembers her tin-roofed house tucked away in a vast forest paradise; the sparkling creeks, with their frogs and crawdads; the sweet blackberries growing along the road to her granny’s; and her abusive father. An elegiac account of survival despite being born poor, female, and cloistered, Bobi’s testament is one of hope for all vulnerable populations, particularly women and girls caught in the cycle of poverty and abuse.
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Hard Pass
- By Kathryn Liggett on 06-13-20
By: Bobi Conn
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The Pact
- Three Young Men Make a Promise and Fulfill a Dream
- By: Drs. Sampson Davis, George Jenkins, Rameck Hunt
- Narrated by: Drs. Sampson Davis, George Jenkins, Rameck Hunt
- Length: 5 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
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All too often, we hear about the dangers of male friendships in which peer pressure prevails over common sense. But for George Jenkins, Sampson Davis, and Rameck Hunt, strong and supportive male friendship was a powerful antidote to the temptations and pitfalls of street life. It led three boys to make a vow to be there for one another, to encourage one another every step of the way, until they overcame the odds and became doctors.
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Very Inspirational
- By Heather on 04-10-09
By: Drs. Sampson Davis, and others
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When Love Calls, You Better Answer
- By: Bertice Berry
- Narrated by: Cherene Snow
- Length: 6 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
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Blackboard best-selling author Bertice Berry is beloved for her spirited romantic comedies. In When Love Calls, You Better Answer, she introduces a good-hearted woman with a track record of attracting bad men. Tireless social worker Bernita Brown has been through it all.
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This is the most amazing book I’ve ever read!
- By Amalishe Tambala on 03-01-20
By: Bertice Berry
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Jay's Journal
- By: Anonymous, Dr. Beatice Sparks - Edited by
- Narrated by: Ramon De Ocampo
- Length: 5 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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Jay was a sweet, bright high school student who cared about his grades and his friends. He had ambitions. He was happy. And he thought he could handle anything. He was wrong. When Jay falls in with a crowd that's dabbling in drugs and the occult, he finds himself in over his head and doing things he never thought possible.
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Not a Real Story!
- By L.J. on 10-18-22
By: Anonymous, and others
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The Art of the Pimp
- One Man's Search for Love, Sex, and Money
- By: Dennis Hof
- Narrated by: Kevin Stillwell
- Length: 10 hrs
- Unabridged
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Dennis Hof, proprietor of the world-famous Moonlite Bunny Ranch brothel and the P.T. Barnum of prostitution, charts his path to fame and infamy, while dispensing homespun wisdom about sex, sales, money, and how to live as the country's most recognizable pimp. In The Art of the Pimp, Dennis Hof offers a hilarious, insightful, behind-the-scenes look at life as the proprietor of The Moonlight Bunny Ranch, the world's most famous legal brothel, and recounts his chaotic life.
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if you love the sex industry then yell love this
- By Amazon Customer on 11-28-17
By: Dennis Hof
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A Town Divided by Christmas
- By: Orson Scott Card, Claire Bloom - director
- Narrated by: Emily Rankin
- Length: 2 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
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It began with a quarrel over which newborn should be the baby Jesus in the town's Christmas pageant. Decades later, two scientists arrive to study small-town genetic patterns, only to run up against the invisible walls that split the leading citizens into two congregations that can only be joined by love and forgiveness - and maybe a little deception, because there might be some things people just don't need to know.
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Just what I wanted...
- By Lonnie-The GreatNorthernTroll-Moore on 12-25-18
By: Orson Scott Card, and others
What listeners say about Listen Mama
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Brian
- 03-07-22
Wow. Full of Raw Emotion
Listen Mama is one of those titles that I wouldn’t normally pick up without knowing much about it. Sadly, that’s one of the problems that a memoir has. One way they can draw you in (outside of being a celebrity) is through the cover.
I have to say that at first glance, this cover grabbed my attention — but I wasn’t sure why. I can feel the artist trying to tell me something. And I think that’s what you’re me to it. It has this sentence that there’s so much more going on below the surface. I just felt like I needed to know Manny’s story just from the cover alone. Another way that a memoir will get some traction is to be nominated for an award… and an Audie is probably the creme de la creme of those. Knowing that it was up it in the memoir category really made picking this one up easy.
Diving into it, I was surprised at the amount of emotion and raw… feeling that Williams was able to get out of it. Not just from their journey but the tone of the book. That’s hard to do.
I am in no way want to take away from the story that Williams is telling here but dealing with mental health and family is one of the most difficult and frustrating things that anybody can deal with. I think he was able to talk about all of the difficulties that come with it and tell a unique story of his life in a way that made this a very interesting story to listen to.
Overall I enjoyed listening to this book on audio, the performance was excellent. And definitely took a book that was already very good and made it even better. I love when a narrator is able to do that. And it doesn’t happen all the time. It’s pretty easy to see where this book was nominated for an Audie.
I think JD Jackson’s style matched perfectly with Williams’ ability to tell a story. A true story of that. It’s nice when an author and a narrator are able to mesh like this and tell an even better version of the original story.
I’m really glad that I picked this one up and if you’re looking for a tail that’s almost unbelievable but you also know it’s true definitely check this one out.
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- Victor @ theAudiobookBlog dot com
- 02-11-22
Nightmares of past pains!
Listen Mama is a dramatically heartbreaking and movingly beautiful coming-of-age memoir written with care and love by M.S.P. Williams about how as a teenager he struggled to cope with an unfair life and, at the same time, to accept the mental illness issues of his mother.
We meet Manny in the early 90s when he begins his journey through the turbulent waters of his existence as a teenager and we are witnesses to his ordeals and tribulations until the bittersweet but satisfying conclusion of his story, in the late 2000s. This is definitely a painfully honest recollection of someone who endured more than anyone should…
For Listen Mama, theater professor, aspiring stage director, and Audie award-winning narrator JD Jackson delivers a superb and exquisite performance filled with emotion and intensity! He takes the time with the narration, brings each character to life with extra attention, and elevates the level of immersion for the listener throughout the eight hours of the audio production.
JD Jackson is one of the best artists in the audiobook industry and thanks to his significant skills this haunting but at the same time uplifting journey of human resilience is made even better.
Listen Mama is a finalist for the 2022 Audie Awards for Best Audiobook Memoir and after listening to it I can say that it definitely deserves a chance at this prestigious award. Both the author and the narrator have done their absolute best when it comes to this production and this is all that we as audiobook listeners can ask for.
I’m really glad that I got the opportunity to discover Manny’s story and I know that I will never forget it. For me, this was a narrative experience filled with tears, sad smiles, and heartfelt emotions.
I hope that you found this review interesting and will consider leaving a helpful vote below. Thank you! Take care, stay safe, and don't forget, always listen with your heart.
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4 people found this helpful