Matrix
A Novel
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Narrated by:
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Adjoa Andoh
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By:
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Lauren Groff
About this listen
AN INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
WINNER OF THE 2022 JOYCE CAROL OATES PRIZE
FINALIST FOR THE 2021 NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FOR FICTION
One of Barack Obama's Favorite Books of 2021
Named a Best Book of the Year by The New York Times, The Washington Post, TIME, NPR, The Financial Times, Good Housekeeping, Esquire, Vulture, Marie Claire, Vox, The Los Angeles Times, USA Today and more!
“A relentless exhibition of Groff’s freakish talent. In just over 250 pages, she gives us a character study to rival Hilary Mantel’s Thomas Cromwell .” – USA Today
“An electric reimagining . . . feminist, sensual . . . unforgettable.” – O, The Oprah Magazine
“Thrilling and heartbreaking.” –Time Magazine
“[A] page-by-page pleasure as we soar with her.” –New York Times
One of our best American writers, Lauren Groff returns with her exhilarating first new novel since the groundbreaking Fates and Furies.
Cast out of the royal court by Eleanor of Aquitaine, deemed too coarse and rough-hewn for marriage or courtly life, seventeen-year-old Marie de France is sent to England to be the new prioress of an impoverished abbey, its nuns on the brink of starvation and beset by disease.
At first taken aback by the severity of her new life, Marie finds focus and love in collective life with her singular and mercurial sisters. In this crucible, Marie steadily supplants her desire for family, for her homeland, for the passions of her youth with something new to her: devotion to her sisters, and a conviction in her own divine visions. Marie, born the last in a long line of women warriors and crusaders, is determined to chart a bold new course for the women she now leads and protects. But in a world that is shifting and corroding in frightening ways, one that can never reconcile itself with her existence, will the sheer force of Marie’s vision be bulwark enough?
Equally alive to the sacred and the profane, Matrix gathers currents of violence, sensuality, and religious ecstasy in a mesmerizing portrait of consuming passion, aberrant faith, and a woman that history moves both through and around. Lauren Groff’s new novel, her first since Fates and Furies, is a defiant and timely exploration of the raw power of female creativity in a corrupted world.
©2021 Lauren Groff (P)2021 Listening LibraryListeners also enjoyed...
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Don't miss this one
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Interview: Lauren Groff Brings a Modern Twist to 12th-Century Nuns
Critic reviews
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It is 1502, and seven-year-old Bianca de Nevada lives at Montefiore, the farm of her father, Don Vicente. But one day a noble entourage makes its way up to the farm. In the presence of Cesare Borgia and his sister, the lovely and vain Lucrezia, no one can claim innocence for very long. When Borgia sends Don Vicente on a quest, he leaves Bianca under the care of Lucrezia. She plots a dire fate for the young girl in the woods below the farm, but salvation can be found in the dark forest as well.
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Interesting re-telling of the fairy tale.
- By Patricia on 03-04-10
By: Gregory Maguire
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Lilith
- By: George MacDonald
- Narrated by: Rebecca K. Reynolds
- Length: 11 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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It is the story of Mr. Vane, an orphan and heir to a large house - a house in which he has a vision that leads him through a large old mirror into another world. In chronicling the five trips Mr. Vane makes to this other world, MacDonald hauntingly explores the ultimate mystery of evil.
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INACCESSIBLE BOOK BECOMES ACCESSIBLE AND ENJOYABLE
- By Steve on 07-31-19
By: George MacDonald
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The Anchoress
- By: Robyn Cadwallader
- Narrated by: Mary Jane Wells, Steve West
- Length: 9 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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Sarah is just 17 when she chooses to become an anchoress, a holy woman shut away in a cell that measures only seven by nine paces, at the side of the village church. Fleeing the grief of losing a much-loved sister in childbirth as well as pressure to marry the local lord's son, she decides to renounce the world - with all its dangers, desires, and temptations - and commit herself to a life of prayer. But it soon becomes clear that the thick, unforgiving walls of Sarah's cell cannot protect her as well as she had thought.
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Entertaining
- By Here-and-faraway on 07-01-15
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Tales from the Hinterland
- The Hazel Wood
- By: Melissa Albert
- Narrated by: Rebecca Soler
- Length: 6 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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Journey into the Hinterland, a brutal and beautiful world where a young woman spends a night with Death, brides are wed to a mysterious house in the trees, and an enchantress is killed twice - and still lives.
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Does not disappoint
- By Harley Easton on 02-22-21
By: Melissa Albert
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A Vision of Light
- A Margaret of Ashbury Novel, Book 1
- By: Judith Merkle Riley
- Narrated by: Anne Flosnik
- Length: 15 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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Margaret of Ashbury wants to write her life story. However, like most women in 14th-century England, she is illiterate. Three clerics contemptuously decline to be Margaret’s scribe, and only the threat of starvation persuades Brother Gregory, a Carthusian friar with a mysterious past, to take on the task. As she narrates her life, we discover a woman of startling resourcefulness.
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Old fashioned heroine
- By Margaret on 06-22-13
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The Glass Woman
- A Novel
- By: Caroline Lea
- Narrated by: Heiða Reed, Smari Gunn
- Length: 11 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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Story
In the tradition of Jane Eyre and Rebecca - The Glass Woman by Caroline Lea in which a young woman follows her new husband to his remote home on the Icelandic coast in the 1680s, where she faces dark secrets surrounding the death of his first wife amidst a foreboding landscape and the superstitions of the local villagers.
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Grim but ultimately worth it
- By Ellie on 08-29-20
By: Caroline Lea
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The Book of Longings
- A Novel
- By: Sue Monk Kidd
- Narrated by: Mozhan Marnò, Sue Monk Kidd
- Length: 13 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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In her mesmerizing fourth work of fiction, Sue Monk Kidd takes an audacious approach to history and brings her acclaimed narrative gifts to imagine the story of a young woman named Ana. Raised in a wealthy family with ties to the ruler of Galilee, she is rebellious and ambitious, with a brilliant mind and a daring spirit. She engages in furtive scholarly pursuits and writes narratives about neglected and silenced women. Ana is expected to marry an older widower, a prospect that horrifies her. An encounter with 18-year-old Jesus changes everything.
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Made me cringe
- By Joan on 05-08-20
By: Sue Monk Kidd
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Taliesin
- The Pendragon Cycle, Book 1
- By: Stephen R. Lawhead
- Narrated by: Wanda McCaddon
- Length: 19 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
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It was a time of legend, as the last shadows of the mighty Roman conqueror faded from the captured Isle of Britain. Meanwhile, across a vast sea, bloody war shattered a peace that had flourished for 2,000 years in the doomed kingdom of Atlantis. This is the remarkable adventure of Charis, the courageous princess from Atlantis who escapes the terrible devastation of her land, and of the fabled seer and druid prince Taliesin, singer at the dawn of the age. It is a story of an incomparable love that joins two astonishing worlds....
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A Classic interpretation of a Classic tale
- By John on 08-11-03
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She Walks in Beauty
- A Woman's Journey Through Poems
- By: Adrienne Rich, Pablo Neruda, Elizabeth Bishop, and others
- Narrated by: John Bedford Lloyd, Campbell Scott, Jane Alexander, and others
- Length: 5 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
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Story
She Walks in Beauty draws on poetry’s eloquent wisdom to ponder the many joys and challenges of being a woman. Caroline Kennedy has divided the collection into sections that signify to her the most notable milestones, passages, and universal experiences in a woman’s life, and she begins each of these sections with an introduction in which she explores and celebrates the most important elements of life’s journey.
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Still struggling with poetry
- By Beatrice on 01-30-12
By: Adrienne Rich, and others
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Of Love and Other Demons
- By: Gabriel García Márquez
- Narrated by: Christopher Salazar
- Length: 5 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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Story
On her 12th birthday, Sierva Maria - the only child of a decaying noble family in an 18th-century South American seaport - is bitten by a rabid dog. Believed to be possessed, she is brought to a convent for observation. And into her cell stumbles Father Cayetano Delaura, who has already dreamed about a girl with hair trailing after her like a bridal train. As he tends to her with holy water and sacramental oils, Delaura feels something shocking begin to occur.
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Love/Religion/Family: Making people nuts for years
- By Darwin8u on 09-04-23
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Dragon's Child
- The King Arthur Trilogy, Book 1
- By: M. K. Hume
- Narrated by: Steven Crossley
- Length: 18 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
The future of Britain is at stake. In the turbulent times of the Dark Ages, the despotic Uther Pendragon, High King of Celtic Britain, is nearing death, and his kingdom is being torn apart by the squabbling of minor kings. But only one man can bring the Celts together as a nation and restore peace - King Arthur. Artorex (Arthur) doesn't yet seem like the great man he will grow into. We meet him as a shy, subservient twelve-year-old living in the foster home of Lord Ector, who took in Artorex as a babe to protect him from murderous kin.
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A Dry, Dull Tale, Marred in "Realism"
- By Steven on 09-21-15
By: M. K. Hume
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Gimpel the Fool and Other Stories
- By: Isaac Bashevis Singer
- Narrated by: Theodore Bikel
- Length: 2 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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Story
These 4 stories are infused with the wit and imagination, the humor and wisdom, that characterizes all of Isaac Bashevis Singer's work. Theodore Bikel reads these wise and funny tales in classic Yiddish storyteller cadence, injecting special warmth and resonance. The tales include "Gimpel the Fool," "Esther Kreindel the Second," "The Spinoza of Market Street," and "The Black Wedding."
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Incredible narration
- By Frances on 01-10-19
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Beasts and Beauty
- Dangerous Tales
- By: Soman Chainani
- Narrated by: Polly Lee
- Length: 6 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Twelve tales, 12 dangerous tales of mystery, magic, and rebellious hearts. Each twists like a spindle to reveal truths full of warning and triumph, truths that free hearts long kept tame, truths that explore life...and death.
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The Book & the Narrator
- By Johnny Morris on 08-19-22
By: Soman Chainani
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Guest
- A Changeling Tale
- By: Mary Downing Hahn
- Narrated by: Shelley Atkinson
- Length: 4 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
When her adorable baby brother is replaced by an ugly, ill-tempered changeling, Mollie is determined to find the so-called Kinde Folke who took baby Thomas, return the changeling she calls Guest, and make them give Thomas back. Natural and magical obstacles and her own reckless temperament make her journey arduous and full of dangers, and a plot rich in surprises and twists makes this book a must-listen for Mary Downing Hahn’s fans.
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My kids loved it!
- By TaniaP on 10-14-19
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Over a decade ago, Groff moved to her adopted home state of Florida. The stories in this collection span characters, towns, decades, even centuries, but Florida—its landscape, climate, history, and state of mind—becomes its gravitational center. Storms, snakes, and sinkholes lurk at the edge of everyday life, but the greater threats and mysteries are of a human, emotional, and psychological nature. Groff's evocative storytelling and knife-sharp intelligence first transport the listener, then jolt us alert with a crackle of wit, a wave of sadness, a flash of cruelty....
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Don't buy the audiobook
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From the award-winning, New York Times best-selling author of The Monsters of Templeton, Arcadia, Florida and Matrix, an exhilarating novel about marriage, creativity, art, and perception. Fates and Furies is a literary masterpiece that defies expectation. A dazzling examination of a marriage, it is also a portrait of creative partnership written by one of the best writers of her generation. Every story has two sides. Every relationship has two perspectives.
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Paean to Marriage, Mythology and Theatre
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The Vaster Wilds
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A servant girl escapes from a colonial settlement in the wilderness. She carries nothing with her but her wits, a few possessions, and the spark of god that burns hot within her. What she finds in this terra incognita is beyond the limits of her imagination and will bend her belief in everything that her own civilization has taught her.
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Slow torture written too hastily
- By Jennifer on 09-23-23
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Monsters of Templeton
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In the wake of a disastrous affair with her married archeology professor, brilliant Wilhelmina Cooper arrives back at the doorstep of her hippie mother-turned-born-again-Christian's house in Templeton, New York - a storybook town her ancestors founded on the shores of Lake Glimmerglass. Upon her arrival, a prehistoric monster surfaces in the lake, bringing a feeding frenzy to the quiet town. And Willie learns she has a mystery father her mother has kept secret for Willie's entire life.
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Nonsense
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Arcadia
- By: Lauren Groff
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Lauren Groff’s acclaimed debut novel The Monsters of Templeton was short-listed for the Orange Prize. Her second novel, Arcadia opens in the late 1960s with a group of young idealists forming a commune in western New York State. Into this group is born Bit, who grows into a quiet, distant man. Over the course of 50 years, Bit witnesses the utopia crumble and the world change in unimaginable ways.
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Luscious prose, intimate and realistic
- By Kathleen on 03-22-12
By: Lauren Groff
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Delicate Edible Birds and Other Stories
- By: Lauren Groff
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Lauren Groff presents nine stories of astonishing insight and variety, each revealing a resonant drama within the life of a 20th-century American woman. In some of these stories, enormous changes happen in an instant. In others, transformations occur across a lifetime---or several lifetimes. Throughout the collection, Groff displays particular and vivid preoccupations.
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Lauren Groff is amazing!
- By Pedro Ramirez on 11-10-15
By: Lauren Groff
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Florida
- By: Lauren Groff
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Over a decade ago, Groff moved to her adopted home state of Florida. The stories in this collection span characters, towns, decades, even centuries, but Florida—its landscape, climate, history, and state of mind—becomes its gravitational center. Storms, snakes, and sinkholes lurk at the edge of everyday life, but the greater threats and mysteries are of a human, emotional, and psychological nature. Groff's evocative storytelling and knife-sharp intelligence first transport the listener, then jolt us alert with a crackle of wit, a wave of sadness, a flash of cruelty....
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Don't buy the audiobook
- By Ethan Gouveia on 06-16-18
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Fates and Furies
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From the award-winning, New York Times best-selling author of The Monsters of Templeton, Arcadia, Florida and Matrix, an exhilarating novel about marriage, creativity, art, and perception. Fates and Furies is a literary masterpiece that defies expectation. A dazzling examination of a marriage, it is also a portrait of creative partnership written by one of the best writers of her generation. Every story has two sides. Every relationship has two perspectives.
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Paean to Marriage, Mythology and Theatre
- By W Perry Hall on 09-20-15
By: Lauren Groff
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The Vaster Wilds
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- Narrated by: January LaVoy
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A servant girl escapes from a colonial settlement in the wilderness. She carries nothing with her but her wits, a few possessions, and the spark of god that burns hot within her. What she finds in this terra incognita is beyond the limits of her imagination and will bend her belief in everything that her own civilization has taught her.
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Slow torture written too hastily
- By Jennifer on 09-23-23
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Monsters of Templeton
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In the wake of a disastrous affair with her married archeology professor, brilliant Wilhelmina Cooper arrives back at the doorstep of her hippie mother-turned-born-again-Christian's house in Templeton, New York - a storybook town her ancestors founded on the shores of Lake Glimmerglass. Upon her arrival, a prehistoric monster surfaces in the lake, bringing a feeding frenzy to the quiet town. And Willie learns she has a mystery father her mother has kept secret for Willie's entire life.
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Nonsense
- By Diana on 02-19-08
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Arcadia
- By: Lauren Groff
- Narrated by: Andrew Garman
- Length: 11 hrs and 8 mins
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Story
Lauren Groff’s acclaimed debut novel The Monsters of Templeton was short-listed for the Orange Prize. Her second novel, Arcadia opens in the late 1960s with a group of young idealists forming a commune in western New York State. Into this group is born Bit, who grows into a quiet, distant man. Over the course of 50 years, Bit witnesses the utopia crumble and the world change in unimaginable ways.
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Luscious prose, intimate and realistic
- By Kathleen on 03-22-12
By: Lauren Groff
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Delicate Edible Birds and Other Stories
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- Narrated by: Susan Ericksen
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Lauren Groff presents nine stories of astonishing insight and variety, each revealing a resonant drama within the life of a 20th-century American woman. In some of these stories, enormous changes happen in an instant. In others, transformations occur across a lifetime---or several lifetimes. Throughout the collection, Groff displays particular and vivid preoccupations.
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Lauren Groff is amazing!
- By Pedro Ramirez on 11-10-15
By: Lauren Groff
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The Prophets
- By: Robert Jones Jr.
- Narrated by: Karen Chilton
- Length: 14 hrs and 52 mins
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Isaiah was Samuel's and Samuel was Isaiah's. That was the way it was since the beginning, and the way it was to be until the end. In the barn they tended to the animals, but also to each other, transforming the hollowed-out shed into a place of human refuge, a source of intimacy and hope in a world ruled by vicious masters. But when an older man - a fellow slave - seeks to gain favor by preaching the master's gospel on the plantation, the enslaved begin to turn on their own.
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LOVED IT
- By Des on 04-18-21
By: Robert Jones Jr.
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The Matrix and Philosophy
- By: William Irwin, Editor
- Narrated by: Oliver Wyman, Rick Adamson, Jennifer Jay Myers
- Length: 6 hrs and 47 mins
- Abridged
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Performance
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Story
The choice is yours, and you'll have to live with the consequences for at least the rest of your life. Will you take the blue pill - skip this audiobook and go on thinking of The Matrix as just a movie? Or will you take the red pill - listen to this book, and find out just how far down the rabbit-hole goes?
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Be prepared for serious philosophical thinking
- By Alan Rither on 06-12-03
By: William Irwin, and others
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Cat's Eye
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Disturbing, humorous, and compassionate, Cat’s Eye is the story of Elaine Risley, a controversial painter who returns to Toronto, the city of her youth, for a retrospective of her art. Engulfed by vivid images of the past, she reminisces about a trio of girls who initiated her into the the fierce politics of childhood and its secret world of friendship, longing, and betrayal.
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Excellent
- By Sarah on 08-24-15
By: Margaret Atwood
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Violeta
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- Length: 11 hrs and 59 mins
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Violeta comes into the world on a stormy day in 1920, the first girl in a family with five boisterous sons. From the start, her life is marked by extraordinary events, for the ripples of the Great War are still being felt, even as the Spanish flu arrives on the shores of her South American homeland almost at the moment of her birth.
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Not my favorite....
- By Pat Brett on 02-14-22
By: Isabel Allende, and others
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Sea of Tranquility
- A Novel
- By: Emily St. John Mandel
- Narrated by: John Lee, Dylan Moore, Arthur Morey, and others
- Length: 5 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Edwin St. Andrew is eighteen years old when he crosses the Atlantic by steamship, exiled from polite society following an ill-conceived diatribe at a dinner party. He enters the forest, spellbound by the beauty of the Canadian wilderness, and suddenly hears the notes of a violin echoing in an airship terminal—an experience that shocks him to his core.
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An excellent listen.
- By Mark on 04-11-22
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Hell of a Book
- A Novel
- By: Jason Mott
- Narrated by: JD Jackson, Ronald Peet
- Length: 9 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
In Jason Mott’s Hell of a Book, a Black author sets out on a cross-country publicity tour to promote his bestselling novel. That storyline drives Hell of a Book and is the scaffolding of something much larger and more urgent: Mott’s novel also tells the story of Soot, a young Black boy living in a rural town in the recent past, and The Kid, a possibly imaginary child who appears to the author on his tour.
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Four Stars for Content, One More for...
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By: Jason Mott
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The End of October
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Performance
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Story
At an internment camp in Indonesia, 47 people are pronounced dead with acute hemorrhagic fever. When Henry Parsons - microbiologist, epidemiologist - travels there on behalf of the World Health Organization to investigate, what he finds will soon have staggering repercussions across the globe: an infected man is on his way to join the millions of worshippers in the annual Hajj to Mecca. Now, Henry joins forces with a Saudi prince and doctor in an attempt to quarantine the entire host of pilgrims in the holy city....
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Powerful. prophetic, with the heros we need
- By tina on 04-30-20
By: Lawrence Wright
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The Marriage Portrait
- A Novel
- By: Maggie O'Farrell
- Narrated by: Genevieve Gaunt, Maggie O'Farrell
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Story
Florence, the 1550s. Lucrezia, third daughter of the grand duke, is comfortable with her obscure place in the palazzo: free to wonder at its treasures, observe its clandestine workings, and to devote herself to her own artistic pursuits. But when her older sister dies on the eve of her wedding, Lucrezia is thrust into the limelight: the duke is quick to request her hand in marriage, and her father just as quick to accept on her behalf. Having barely left girlhood behind, Lucrezia must make her way in a court whose customs are opaque and where her arrival is not universally welcomed.
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If You Love Alternate Histories, Get This
- By Jim on 09-26-22
By: Maggie O'Farrell
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What the Fireflies Knew
- A Novel
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Story
An ode to Black girlhood and adolescence as seen through KB's eyes, What the Fireflies Knew follows KB after her father dies of an overdose and the debts incurred from his addiction cause the loss of the family home in Detroit. Soon thereafter, KB and her teenage sister, Nia, are sent by their overwhelmed mother to live with their estranged grandfather in Lansing, Michigan. Over the course of a single sweltering summer, KB attempts to navigate a world that has turned upside down.
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Heart-Wrenching Story of Complex Love & Loss
- By Nicole Estes on 01-27-23
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The Best American Short Stories 2024
- By: Lauren Groff, Heidi Pitlor
- Narrated by: Christina Delaine, Vikas Adam, Joniece Abbott-Pratt, and others
- Length: 17 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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Story
“There have never been as many exquisitely built stories in existence than there are now,” proclaims guest editor Lauren Groff in her introduction. This abundance led to a volume of robust stories with the nerve to push against narrative expectations. The Best American Short Stories 2024 boasts a collection of twenty stories that “buzz with their own strange logic.” Daring and resonant, the stories in this volume invite in Groff “a feeling that both the author and I were simultaneously discovering something together.”
By: Lauren Groff, and others
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Hild
- A Novel
- By: Nicola Griffith
- Narrated by: Pearl Hewitt
- Length: 23 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
In seventh-century Britain, small kingdoms are merging, frequently and violently. A new religion is coming ashore; the old gods are struggling, their priests worrying. Hild is the king's youngest niece, and she has a glimmering mind and a natural, noble authority. She will become a fascinating woman and one of the pivotal figures of the Middle Ages: Saint Hilda of Whitby. But now she has only the powerful curiosity of a bright child, a will of adamant, and a way of seeing the world that can seem uncanny, even supernatural, to those around her.
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I'd give it 10 stars if I could
- By David on 03-27-14
By: Nicola Griffith
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Perfect Little World
- A Novel
- By: Kevin Wilson
- Narrated by: Therese Plummer
- Length: 12 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
When Isabelle Poole meets Dr. Preston Grind, she's just about out of options. She recently graduated from high school and is pregnant with her art teacher's baby. Her mother is dead, and her father is a drunk. The art teacher is too much of a head case to help raise the child. Izzy knows she can be a good mother, but without any money or prospects she's left searching. So when Dr. Grind offers her a space in The Infinite Family Project, she accepts. Housed in a spacious compound in Tennessee, she joins nine other couples, all with children the same age as her newborn son.
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Infinitely awesome
- By Lauren Jennings on 07-14-18
By: Kevin Wilson
What listeners say about Matrix
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Art Librarian
- 02-19-24
Amazing performance
A beautiful narrative, woman-centered, and the highest quality historical fiction. But the reading! An absolutely stellar performance, really one of the best I’ve listened to.
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- Natalia
- 11-30-21
Fascinating storytelling and a study in leadership
A 17 year old is thrust into a nunnery and turns it into a thriving safe haven for women in the middle ages.
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- Teresa
- 12-02-21
Astonishing performance!
Adjoa Andoh was magnificent! Great story that was certainly elevated by the acting. The story is complex so it requires concentration in listening, but worth the hours of listening. Superb!
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- JLP
- 03-22-22
Captivating and bewitching!
The author’s and narrator’s roll out like a silk river. Wave after wave of beauty.
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- Finley
- 01-15-22
Brilliant narration!
Captivating story that made me research the real Marie and her abbey. The narrator gave a stunning performance.
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- Joanne
- 11-12-21
Crafted with loose ends
Marie so big and full yet her visions and intentions seemed incomplete. I enjoyed the poetic landscape but felt there was a missing bit.
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- Josie W.
- 02-14-22
Could not put it down.
I have dyslexia and reading along with the audio book version made it easier and gave me back the joy of reading.
I love this book. It made me feel all the emotions. The ending with short and sweet and at first I was wanting more, however after thinking about it, I felt that it went with how life really is. You live then you don't live anymore and life moves on.
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- Huntress of Erudition
- 12-29-22
Interesting Story But Obnoxious Narrator
I liked the story but found the narrator to be overly dramatic, bordering on obnoxious. It was almost like she was reading Shakespeare—a little over the top. This is a very well written book but Shakespeare it is not. I much preferred The Marriage Portrait by Maggie O’Farrell.
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- Lena Surzhko
- 09-22-23
Powerful book. Gripping narrative
Empowering story beautifully written. Well worth retelling the stories of this extraordinary woman’s life to give strength, comfort, and warning. The narration is equally compelling and powerful
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- ReallyNelie
- 09-25-21
Wonderful story well written and narratives
I really loved this book. I have always wondered what the life of a nun was like back in the days when becoming a nun was one of the few options for a woman who didn’t want to , or had no chance of, marrying a man or becoming a prostitute. Especially it always seeme to me it might be a place where a woman with a little education might use such education in the Middle Ages. But I always thought that the politics of living in an all female monastic community, especially if one ended up there not because of great devotion to God but because of a harsh world where there ws no other place for you, would be a challenge in itself. So I think part of me has always wanted a story like this. Marie is unusual enough to be a fascinating feminist figure, but of her time enough for the story to sound real. The details of how the convent runs, the grimness of how diseases and bad crops are ever present threats not to mention the politics of making the institution one serves financially prosperous when more powerful male run branches of the church and royalty can at any time raid that prosperity and the very believable characterization of her sister nuns in all their humanity was just a fascinating story to me. Marie’s increasing religiosity ( of a radically nonconformist type) is also an important story thread.
Groffs writing is definitely part of what makes this book such a pleasure. It’s vivid and poetic in its description of the natural world of the12th century as well as the description of the enormous efforts made to tame nature into a useful form and the wildness that is lost in the process. It’s also wonderful in its description about the undercurrents of emotions and yearnings that would exist leading a life that is lacking in privacy and demanding while also contemplative. The narrator of this audible version did an amazing job with voices and accents which added a lot to the storytelling.
Just loved this audiobook I’m every way
Loved the whole story from beginning to end.
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24 people found this helpful