
Mania
A Novel
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Narrated by:
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Abby Craden
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By:
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Lionel Shriver
About this listen
""A fantasy that hews uncomfortably close to today’s reality, where facts and the truth are selectively recognized at increasingly subjective whims . . . . The specifics of Mania are the stuff of bleeding satire, but the novel’s guiding concept cuts close to the bone with no anesthesia. Shriver isn’t one to tip-toe around her subjects. She still knows how to poke the bear. In this case, the bear is us.” — Boston Globe
Set in a parallel yet all too familiar near past, a brilliant subversive novel about a lifelong friendship threatened by culture wars, from the New York Times bestselling author.
In an alternative 2011, the Mental Parity movement takes hold. Americans now embrace the sacred, universal truth that there is no such thing as variable human intelligence. Because everyone is equally smart, discrimination against purportedly dumb people is ""the last great civil rights fight."" Tests, grades, and employment qualifications are all discarded. Children are expelled for saying the S-word (“stupid”) and encouraged to report parents who use it at home.
A college English instructor, the constitutionally rebellious Pearson Converse rejected her restrictive Jehovah’s Witness upbringing as a teenager, and so has an aversion to dogma of any kind. Made impotent in the university classroom, she’s also enraged by the crushing of her exceptionally bright children’s spirits in primary school. Fortunately, she enjoys the confidence of a best friend, a media commentator with whom she can speak frankly about her socially unacceptable contempt for the MP movement. Or at least she thinks she can . . . until one day the political chasm between the two women becomes uncrossable, and a lifelong relationship implodes.
With echoes of Philip Roth’s The Human Stain, told in Lionel Shriver’s inimitable and iconoclastic voice, Mania is a sharp, acerbic, and ruthlessly funny book about the road to a delusional, self-destructive egalitarianism that our society is already on.
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Fearless thinker
- By Irene E Nunn on 12-03-22
By: Lionel Shriver
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Atomic Anna
- By: Rachel Barenbaum
- Narrated by: Traci Odom, Natalie Naudus, Emily Lawrence, and others
- Length: 15 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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In 1986, renowned nuclear scientist Anna Berkova is sleeping in her bed in the Soviet Union when Chernobyl’s reactor melts down. It’s the exact moment she tears through time—and it’s an accident. When she opens her eyes, she’s landed in 1992 only to discover Molly, her estranged daughter, shot in the chest. Molly, with her dying breath, begs Anna to go back in time and stop the disaster, to save Molly’s daughter Raisa, and put their family’s future on a better path.
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I wanted to love this book
- By N McCoy on 10-26-22
By: Rachel Barenbaum
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The Unlikely Escape of Uriah Heep
- A Novel
- By: H. G. Parry
- Narrated by: Calum Gittins
- Length: 18 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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For his entire life, Charley Sutherland has concealed a magical ability he can't quite control: He can bring characters from books into the real world. His older brother, Rob - a young lawyer with a normal house, a normal fiancee, and an utterly normal life - hopes that this strange family secret will disappear with disuse, and he will be discharged from his life's duty of protecting Charley and the real world from each other. But then, literary characters start causing trouble in their city, making threats about destroying the world...and for once, it isn't Charley's doing.
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Exciting, Heartwarming, and Fun
- By Amazon Customer on 11-18-20
By: H. G. Parry
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The Post-Birthday World
- By: Lionel Shriver
- Narrated by: Tanya Eby Sirois
- Length: 20 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
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Children's book illustrator Irina McGovern enjoys a quiet and settled life in London with her partner, fellow American expatriate Lawrence Trainer, a smart, loyal, disciplined intellectual at a prestigious think tank. To their small circle of friends, their relationship is rock solid, until the night Irina unaccountably finds herself dying to kiss another man: their old friend from South London, the stylish, extravagant, passionate top-ranking snooker player Ramsey Acton.
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A terrific examinination of relationships
- By Susan D on 12-04-10
By: Lionel Shriver
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The Secret Keepers
- By: Trenton Lee Stewart
- Narrated by: Cameron Brown
- Length: 15 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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Eleven-year-old Reuben spends his days exploring, hiding, and practicing parkour among the abandoned buildings of the Lower Downs as a way to escape the rough times that have befallen him and his mom - but his discovery of an extraordinary antique pocket watch changes everything. When Reuben finds that the watch has the power to turn him invisible, he's propelled on the adventure of a lifetime. Now Reuben is being pursued by a group of dangerous men called the Directions, and someone - or something - ominously called The Smoke.
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Great book—BEST narrator!
- By Jamie on 02-20-18
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Big Brother
- A Novel
- By: Lionel Shriver
- Narrated by: Alice Rosengard
- Length: 13 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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When Pandora picks up her older brother Edison at the airport, she doesn't recognize him. In the four years since the siblings last saw each other, he has gained hundreds of pounds. What happened? Imposing himself on Pandora's world, Edison breaks her husband Fletcher's handcrafted furniture, and entices her stepson to drop out of high school. After the brother-in-law has more than overstayed his welcome, Fletcher delivers his wife an ultimatum: It's him or me.
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Shriver's Super-sized Best!
- By Pamela Harvey on 07-04-13
By: Lionel Shriver
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Birds of California
- A Novel
- By: Katie Cotugno
- Narrated by: Julia Whelan
- Length: 7 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
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Former child actor Fiona St. James dropped out of the spotlight after a spectacularly public crash and burn. The tabloids called her crazy and self-destructive and said she’d lost her mind. Now in her late twenties, Fiona believes her humiliating past is firmly behind her. She’s finally regained a modicum of privacy, and she won’t let anything—or anyone—mess it up.
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Does anyone edit books anymore?
- By Audrey Fine on 07-05-22
By: Katie Cotugno
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Cry Wolf
- A Novel
- By: Hans Rosenfeldt
- Narrated by: Sofia Engstrand
- Length: 11 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
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Hannah Wester, a policewoman in the remote Northern town of Haparanda, Sweden, finds herself on the precipice of chaos. When human remains are found in the stomach of a dead wolf, Hannah knows that this summer won’t be like any other. The remains are linked to a bloody drug deal across the border in Finland. But how did the victim end up in the woods outside of Haparanda? And where have the drugs and money gone?
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Great story
- By Vern on 01-18-22
By: Hans Rosenfeldt
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The Night Always Comes
- A Novel
- By: Willy Vlautin
- Narrated by: Christine Lakin
- Length: 6 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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Barely 30, Lynette is exhausted. Saddled with bad credit and juggling multiple jobs, some illegally, she’s been diligently working to buy the house she lives in with her mother and developmentally disabled brother Kenny. Portland’s housing prices have nearly quadrupled in 15 years, and the owner is giving them a good deal. Lynette knows it’s their last best chance to own their own home - and obtain the security they’ve never had. While she has enough for the down payment, she needs her mother to cover the rest of the asking price.
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Wow, a knockout!
- By Alma on 04-24-21
By: Willy Vlautin
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Golden State
- By: Ben Winters
- Narrated by: Kiff VandenHeuvel
- Length: 10 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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In an alternate society that values law and truth above all else, Laszlo Ratesic is a 19-year veteran of the Speculative Service. He lives in the Golden State, a nation standing where California once did, a place where like-minded Americans retreated after the erosion of truth and the spread of lies made public life and governance impossible. In the Golden State, knowingly contradicting the truth is the greatest crime - and stopping those crimes is Laz's job. In its service, he is one of the few individuals permitted to harbor untruths, to "speculate" on what might have happened.
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3.41 stars
- By ibillinsly@gmail on 02-04-19
By: Ben Winters
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The Sudden Appearance of Hope
- By: Claire North
- Narrated by: Gillian Burke
- Length: 16 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
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My name is Hope Arden, and you won't know who I am. But we've met before—a thousand times. It started when I was 16 years old. A father forgetting to drive me to school. A mother setting the table for three, not four. A friend who looks at me and sees a stranger. No matter what I do, the words I say, the crimes I commit, you will never remember who I am. That makes my life difficult. It also makes me dangerous. The Sudden Appearance of Hope is a riveting and heartbreaking exploration of identity and existence, about a forgotten girl whose story will stay with you forever.
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Thought-provoking, heartbreaking, memorable
- By S. Yates on 06-22-16
By: Claire North
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The Decameron
- By: Giovanni Boccaccio
- Narrated by: Simon Russell Beale, Gunnar Cauthery, Alison Pettitt, and others
- Length: 28 hrs and 5 mins
- Original Recording
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The Decameron is one of the greatest literary works of the Middle Ages. Ten young people have fled the terrible effects of the Black Death in Florence and, in an idyllic setting, tell a series of brilliant stories, by turns humorous, bawdy, tragic and provocative. This celebration of physical and sexual vitality is Boccaccio's answer to the sublime other-worldliness of Dante's Divine Comedy.
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Not Up to the Usual Naxos Standard
- By John on 11-15-17
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Property
- Stories Between Two Novellas
- By: Lionel Shriver
- Narrated by: Lionel Shriver
- Length: 14 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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A striking new collection of ten short stories and two novellas that explores the idea of property in every meaning of the word, from the acclaimed New York Times best-selling author of the National Book Award finalist So Much for That and the international best seller We Need to Talk About Kevin.
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Painful and drawn out
- By JR on 06-27-18
By: Lionel Shriver
Thoroughly enjoyed this
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Clever premise, tortured execution.
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Agree with NY Times
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A must read
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the best book I read in 2024
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DEI 101
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Fiction for non-fiction lovers
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Thought-provoking
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Satire is good story lacking.
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This is 2024
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