Mother for Dinner
A Novel
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Buy for $15.75
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
-
Narrated by:
-
Shalom Auslander
-
By:
-
Shalom Auslander
About this listen
By the author of Foreskin's Lament, a novel of identity, tribalism, and mothers.
Seventh Seltzer has done everything he can to break from the past, but in his overbearing, narcissistic mother's last moments he is drawn back into the life he left behind. At her deathbed, she whispers in his ear the two words he always knew she would: "Eat me."
This is not unusual, as the Seltzers are Cannibal-Americans, a once proud and thriving ethnic group, but for Seventh, it raises some serious questions, both practical and emotional. Of practical concern, his dead mother is six-foot-two and weighs about 450 pounds. Even divided up between Seventh and his 11 brothers, that's a lot of red meat. Plus Second keeps kosher, Ninth is vegan, First hated her, and Sixth is dead. To make matters worse, even if he can wrangle his brothers together for a feast, the Can-Am people have assimilated, and the only living Cannibal who knows how to perform the ancient ritual is their Uncle Ishmael, whose erratic understanding of their traditions leads to conflict.
Seventh struggles with his mother's deathbed request. He never loved her, but the sense of guilt and responsibility he feels - to her and to his people and to his "unique cultural heritage" - is overwhelming. His mother always taught him he was a link in a chain, thousands of people long, stretching back hundreds of years. But, as his brother First says, he's getting tired of chains.
Irreverent and written with Auslander's incomparable humor, Mother for Dinner is an exploration of legacy, assimilation, the things we owe our families, and the things we owe ourselves.
©2020 Shalom Auslander (P)2020 Penguin AudioListeners also enjoyed...
-
Foreskin's Lament
- A Memoir
- By: Shalom Auslander
- Narrated by: Shalom Auslander
- Length: 7 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Foreskin's Lament reveals Auslander's youth in a strict, socially isolated Orthodox community, and recounts his rebellion and efforts to make a new life apart from it. Auslander remembers his youthful attempt to win the "blessing bee" (the Orthodox version of a spelling bee), his exile to an Orthodox-style reform school in Israel after he's caught shoplifting Union Bay jeans from the mall, and his 14-mile hike to watch the New York Rangers play in Madison Square Garden without violating the Sabbath.
-
-
Best memoir I have listened to in my life!
- By Crusader on 03-06-09
By: Shalom Auslander
-
Hope: A Tragedy
- A Novel
- By: Shalom Auslander
- Narrated by: Shalom Auslander
- Length: 7 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The rural town of Stockton, New York, is famous for nothing: No one was born there, no one died there, nothing of any historical import at all has ever happened there, which is why Solomon Kugel, like other urbanites fleeing their pasts and histories, decided to move his wife and young son there. To begin again. To start anew. But it isn't quite working out that way.
-
-
Darkly humorous and a little disturbing
- By Tan A. Summers on 03-12-12
By: Shalom Auslander
-
Sign Here
- By: Claudia Lux
- Narrated by: MacLeod Andrews, Brittany Pressley
- Length: 10 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Peyote Trip has a pretty good gig in the deals department on the fifth floor of Hell. Sure, none of the pens work, the coffee machine has been out of order for a century, and the only drink on offer is Jägermeister, but Pey has a plan—and all he needs is one last member of the Harrison family to sell their soul.
-
-
Great book!
- By Kasie on 10-28-22
By: Claudia Lux
-
Our Country Friends
- A Novel
- By: Gary Shteyngart
- Narrated by: Rob Shapiro
- Length: 12 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the rolling hills of upstate New York, a group of friends and friends-of-friends gathers in a country house to wait out the pandemic. Over the next six months, new friendships and romances will take hold, while old betrayals will emerge, forcing each character to reevaluate whom they love and what matters most. The unlikely cast of characters includes a Russian-born novelist, his Russian-born psychiatrist wife, their precocious child obsessed with K-pop, a struggling Indian American writer, a wildly successful Korean American app developer, a global dandy with three passports.
-
-
Beautifully written, painful, but very, very moving
- By Jim on 11-08-21
By: Gary Shteyngart
-
Sure, I'll Join Your Cult
- A Memoir of Mental Illness and the Quest to Belong Anywhere
- By: Maria Bamford
- Narrated by: Maria Bamford
- Length: 7 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Maria Bamford is a comedian’s comedian (an outsider among outsiders) and has forever fought to find a place to belong. From struggling with an eating disorder as a child of the 1980s, to navigating a career in the arts (and medical debt and psychiatric institutionalization), she has tried just about every method possible to not only be a part of the world, but to want to be a part of it. In Bamford’s “trademark blend of disarming intimacy and dark whimsy” (Publishers Weekly), Sure, I’ll Join Your Cult brings us on a quest to participate in something.
-
-
Hilarious and sincere
- By B. Bazzell on 09-06-23
By: Maria Bamford
-
Night of the Living Rez
- By: Morgan Talty
- Narrated by: Darrell Dennis
- Length: 7 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Set in a Native community in Maine, Night of the Living Rez is a riveting debut collection about what it means to be Penobscot in the twenty-first century and what it means to live, to survive, and to persevere after tragedy.
-
-
Powerful and Candid Story
- By M on 07-15-22
By: Morgan Talty
-
Foreskin's Lament
- A Memoir
- By: Shalom Auslander
- Narrated by: Shalom Auslander
- Length: 7 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Foreskin's Lament reveals Auslander's youth in a strict, socially isolated Orthodox community, and recounts his rebellion and efforts to make a new life apart from it. Auslander remembers his youthful attempt to win the "blessing bee" (the Orthodox version of a spelling bee), his exile to an Orthodox-style reform school in Israel after he's caught shoplifting Union Bay jeans from the mall, and his 14-mile hike to watch the New York Rangers play in Madison Square Garden without violating the Sabbath.
-
-
Best memoir I have listened to in my life!
- By Crusader on 03-06-09
By: Shalom Auslander
-
Hope: A Tragedy
- A Novel
- By: Shalom Auslander
- Narrated by: Shalom Auslander
- Length: 7 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The rural town of Stockton, New York, is famous for nothing: No one was born there, no one died there, nothing of any historical import at all has ever happened there, which is why Solomon Kugel, like other urbanites fleeing their pasts and histories, decided to move his wife and young son there. To begin again. To start anew. But it isn't quite working out that way.
-
-
Darkly humorous and a little disturbing
- By Tan A. Summers on 03-12-12
By: Shalom Auslander
-
Sign Here
- By: Claudia Lux
- Narrated by: MacLeod Andrews, Brittany Pressley
- Length: 10 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Peyote Trip has a pretty good gig in the deals department on the fifth floor of Hell. Sure, none of the pens work, the coffee machine has been out of order for a century, and the only drink on offer is Jägermeister, but Pey has a plan—and all he needs is one last member of the Harrison family to sell their soul.
-
-
Great book!
- By Kasie on 10-28-22
By: Claudia Lux
-
Our Country Friends
- A Novel
- By: Gary Shteyngart
- Narrated by: Rob Shapiro
- Length: 12 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the rolling hills of upstate New York, a group of friends and friends-of-friends gathers in a country house to wait out the pandemic. Over the next six months, new friendships and romances will take hold, while old betrayals will emerge, forcing each character to reevaluate whom they love and what matters most. The unlikely cast of characters includes a Russian-born novelist, his Russian-born psychiatrist wife, their precocious child obsessed with K-pop, a struggling Indian American writer, a wildly successful Korean American app developer, a global dandy with three passports.
-
-
Beautifully written, painful, but very, very moving
- By Jim on 11-08-21
By: Gary Shteyngart
-
Sure, I'll Join Your Cult
- A Memoir of Mental Illness and the Quest to Belong Anywhere
- By: Maria Bamford
- Narrated by: Maria Bamford
- Length: 7 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Maria Bamford is a comedian’s comedian (an outsider among outsiders) and has forever fought to find a place to belong. From struggling with an eating disorder as a child of the 1980s, to navigating a career in the arts (and medical debt and psychiatric institutionalization), she has tried just about every method possible to not only be a part of the world, but to want to be a part of it. In Bamford’s “trademark blend of disarming intimacy and dark whimsy” (Publishers Weekly), Sure, I’ll Join Your Cult brings us on a quest to participate in something.
-
-
Hilarious and sincere
- By B. Bazzell on 09-06-23
By: Maria Bamford
-
Night of the Living Rez
- By: Morgan Talty
- Narrated by: Darrell Dennis
- Length: 7 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Set in a Native community in Maine, Night of the Living Rez is a riveting debut collection about what it means to be Penobscot in the twenty-first century and what it means to live, to survive, and to persevere after tragedy.
-
-
Powerful and Candid Story
- By M on 07-15-22
By: Morgan Talty
-
The Book of Form and Emptiness
- A Novel
- By: Ruth Ozeki
- Narrated by: Kerry Shale, Ruth Ozeki
- Length: 18 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
One year after the death of his beloved musician father, thirteen-year-old Benny Oh begins to hear voices. The voices belong to the things in his house—a sneaker, a broken Christmas ornament, a piece of wilted lettuce. Although Benny doesn't understand what these things are saying, he can sense their emotional tone; some are pleasant, a gentle hum or coo, but others are snide, angry and full of pain. When his mother, Annabelle, develops a hoarding problem, the voices grow more clamorous.
-
-
Good narrator, terrible voices
- By Geonn Cannon on 09-23-21
By: Ruth Ozeki
-
Going Clear
- Scientology, Hollywood, and the Prison of Belief
- By: Lawrence Wright
- Narrated by: Morton Sellers
- Length: 17 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A clear-sighted revelation, a deep penetration into the world of Scientology by the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Looming Tower, the now-classic study of al-Qaeda’s 9/11 attack. Based on more than two hundred personal interviews with current and former Scientologists—both famous and less well known—and years of archival research, Lawrence Wright uses his extraordinary investigative ability to uncover for us the inner workings of the Church of Scientology.
-
-
Shockingly Great
- By Michael on 01-27-13
By: Lawrence Wright
-
Unlikely Animals
- A Novel
- By: Annie Hartnett
- Narrated by: Mark Bramhall, Kirby Heyborne
- Length: 10 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Natural-born healer Emma Starling once had big plans for her life, but she’s lost her way. A medical school dropout, she’s come back to small-town Everton, New Hampshire, to care for her father, who is dying from a mysterious brain disease. Clive Starling has been hallucinating small animals, as well as having visions of the ghost of a long-dead naturalist, Ernest Harold Baynes, once known for letting wild animals live in his house. This ghost has been giving Clive some ideas on how to spend his final days.
-
-
Delightful
- By Melinda on 06-20-22
By: Annie Hartnett
-
Signal Fires
- A Novel
- By: Dani Shapiro
- Narrated by: Dani Shapiro
- Length: 7 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Division Street is full of secrets. An impulsive lie begets a secret—one which will forever haunt the Wilf family. And the Shenkmans, who move into the neighborhood many years later, bring secrets of their own.. Spanning fifty kaleidoscopic years, on a street—and in a galaxy—where stars collapse and stories collide, these two families become bound in ways they never could have imagined. Urgent and compassionate, Signal Fires is a magical story for our times, a literary tour de force by a masterful storyteller at the height of her powers.
-
-
Depressing, poorly read
- By Arden Mahaffey on 11-02-22
By: Dani Shapiro
-
Homecoming
- By: Kate Morton
- Narrated by: Claire Foy
- Length: 17 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Adelaide Hills, Christmas Eve, 1959. At the end of a scorching hot day, a local deliveryman makes a terrible discovery. A police investigation is called, and the small town of Tambilla becomes embroiled in one of the most shocking and perplexing murder cases in the history of South Australia. Many years later and thousands of miles away, Jess is a journalist in search of a story. Having lived and worked in London for nearly two decades, she now finds herself laid off from her full-time job and struggling to make ends meet. Until a phone call out of nowhere summons her back to Sydney.
-
-
Loved the compelling audiobook version!
- By Melissas Bookshelf on 04-07-23
By: Kate Morton
-
The Best of Me
- By: David Sedaris
- Narrated by: David Sedaris
- Length: 13 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
For more than 25 years, David Sedaris has been carving out a unique literary space, virtually creating his own genre. A Sedaris story may seem confessional, but is also highly attuned to the world outside. It opens our eyes to what is at absurd and moving about our daily existence. And it is almost impossible to listen without laughing.
-
-
Almost No New Material
- By Lizardectomy on 11-05-20
By: David Sedaris
-
The Hilarious World of Depression
- By: John Moe
- Narrated by: John Moe
- Length: 9 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
For years John Moe, critically-acclaimed public radio personality and host of The Hilarious World of Depression podcast, struggled with depression; it plagued his family and claimed the life of his brother in 2007. As Moe came to terms with his own illness, he began to see similar patterns of behavior and coping mechanisms surfacing in conversations with others, including high-profile comedians who’d struggled with the disease.
-
-
A headline for a great book
- By Astrid on 01-27-21
By: John Moe
-
Klara and the Sun
- A Novel
- By: Kazuo Ishiguro
- Narrated by: Sura Siu
- Length: 10 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Here is the story of Klara, an Artificial Friend with outstanding observational qualities, who, from her place in the store, watches carefully the behavior of those who come in to browse, and of those who pass on the street outside. She remains hopeful that a customer will soon choose her. Klara and the Sun is a thrilling book that offers a look at our changing world through the eyes of an unforgettable narrator, and one that explores the fundamental question: What does it mean to love?
-
-
Well Worth Having Waited For!
- By otherdeb on 03-04-21
By: Kazuo Ishiguro
-
Birnam Wood
- A Novel
- By: Eleanor Catton
- Narrated by: Saskia Maarleveld
- Length: 12 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A landslide has closed the Korowai Pass on New Zealand’s South Island, cutting off the town of Thorndike and leaving a sizable farm abandoned. The disaster presents an opportunity for Birnam Wood, an undeclared, unregulated, sometimes-criminal, sometimes-philanthropic guerrilla gardening collective that plants crops wherever no one will notice. For years, the group has struggled to break even. To occupy the farm at Thorndike would mean a shot at solvency at last. But the enigmatic American billionaire Robert Lemoine also has an interest in the place.
-
-
Outstanding thriller w/ exceptional character development
- By Bradley T. Collins on 04-21-23
By: Eleanor Catton
-
The Nickel Boys (Winner 2020 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction)
- A Novel
- By: Colson Whitehead
- Narrated by: JD Jackson, Colson Whitehead
- Length: 6 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When Elwood Curtis, a black boy growing up in 1960s Tallahassee, is unfairly sentenced to a juvenile reformatory called the Nickel Academy, he finds himself trapped in a grotesque chamber of horrors. Elwood’s only salvation is his friendship with fellow “delinquent” Turner, which deepens despite Turner’s conviction that Elwood is hopelessly naive, that the world is crooked, and that the only way to survive is to scheme and avoid trouble.
-
-
Who spoke for the black boys?
- By Darwin8u on 02-06-20
By: Colson Whitehead
-
Tru Lockhart
- Secrets Don't Stay Buried
- By: Derek Clark, Michael Laemmle
- Narrated by: Brandon Francis
- Length: 15 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
One evening, Tru Lockhart gets a bizarre visit from his father Argus, who has escaped from an institution for the criminally insane. Tru is certain that murder is on his father's mind. Instead, Argus performs a bizarre ceremony that will trigger a startling chain of events, plunging Tru into many oddball worlds, and into the hands of many outlandish villains.
-
-
A Tale of Redemption and Mystery
- By Wilson J. Mayo on 08-12-23
By: Derek Clark, and others
-
Walking in My Joy
- In These Streets
- By: Jenifer Lewis
- Narrated by: Jenifer Lewis
- Length: 7 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Walking in My Joy is a collection of electric stories by the one and only, super hilarious Jenifer Lewis. Her commentary on what’s happening in the world today, told through her outrageous real-life adventures, will have you laughing out loud, while her insightful messages touch your soul. A self-described “traveling fool and nature freak,” Jenifer takes listeners with her all over the world, from Cape Town to Bali; Washington, DC, to the Serengeti; Mongolia to St. Petersburg; and Argentina to Antarctica to demonstrate how she walks in her joy by seeking pleasure in everyday encounters.
-
-
Another great work from Jenifer Mfkng Lewis
- By TonyaA6 on 09-20-22
By: Jenifer Lewis
Critic reviews
"Auslander uses his signature dark humor to brilliantly satirize tribalism in America...Graphic situations abound; even the characters are revolted, while, through their often ludicrous stories, Auslander explores the sense of otherness and the value of diversity. This could be a portrait of any ethnic group that has been consumed by America, though, in this case, it’s unclear who is devouring whom.” (Booklist)
"Auslander...turns his taboo-shattering satiric gaze to cannibalism in this outrageous, salty take on contemporary culture...[a] riotous dissection of cultural formation and a community’s hunger for meaning." (Publishers Weekly)
"Maintaining tradition becomes all-consuming in Shalom Auslander's novel... Mother for Dinner ... turns a jaundiced eye toward ethnic identity and the burdens of tradition as they concern a different oppressed minority group...jokes are dependably good.” (The Wall Street Journal)
Related to this topic
-
Who Killed My Father
- By: Édouard Louis
- Narrated by: Edouard Louis
- Length: 1 hr and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Who Killed My Father rips into France’s long neglect of the working class and its overt contempt for the poor, accusing the complacent French - at the minimum - of negligent homicide. The author goes to visit the ugly gray town of his childhood to see his dying father, barely 50 years old, who can hardly walk or breathe: “You belong to the category of humans whom politics consigns to an early death.” It’s as simple as that.
-
-
Powerful. Poetic. Sparse. Piercing.
- By Theophile Jones on 06-01-23
By: Édouard Louis
-
Permanent Midnight
- A Memoir (20th Anniversary Edition)
- By: Jerry Stahl, Nic Sheff - foreword
- Narrated by: Jerry Stahl, Scott Merriman
- Length: 11 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A searing confessional infused with the darkest humor, Permanent Midnight chronicles the opiated abyss of a Hollywood screenwriter and his formidable climb into sobriety. Made into a major motion picture starring Ben Stiller and Owen Wilson, Permanent Midnight is revered by critics and an ever-growing cult of devoted fans as one of the most compelling contemporary memoirs.
-
-
Point deduction for the recording
- By Amazon Customer on 11-21-20
By: Jerry Stahl, and others
-
Black Boy
- By: Richard Wright
- Narrated by: Peter Francis James
- Length: 15 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Richard Wright's powerful and eloquent memoir of his journey from innocence to experience in the Jim Crow South. At once an unashamed confession and a profound indictment, Black Boy is a poignant record of struggle and endurance - a seminal literary work that illuminates our own time. The once controversial, now classic American autobiography measures the brutality and rawness of the Jim Crow South against the sheer desperate will it took to survive as a Black boy. Seventy-five years later, his words continue to reverberate.
-
-
Outstanding
- By Trevin Harvey on 11-11-20
By: Richard Wright
-
Mercy Among the Children
- A Novel
- By: David Adams Richards
- Narrated by: Bernard Clark
- Length: 13 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Sydney Henderson is a truly great man. As a young man, Sydney, believing he has accidentally killed a friend, makes a pact with God, promising never to harm another if the boy's life is spared. In the years that follow, the almost pathologically gentle Sydney holds true to his promise - at terrible cost to himself and his family. Stunningly beautiful and haunting, scenes from this magisterial novel will remain etched in the mind forever.
-
-
Epic story
- By jhar14 on 06-04-22
-
The Fortunate Pilgrim
- By: Mario Puzo
- Narrated by: John Kenneth
- Length: 9 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Lucia Santa has traveled 3,000 miles of dark ocean, from the mountain farms of Italy to the streets of New York, hoping for a better life. Instead, she finds herself in Hell's Kitchen, in a bad marriage, raising six children on her own. As Lucia struggles to hold her family together, her daughter confronts the adult world of work and romance while her eldest son is drawn into the Mafia. Meanwhile, her youngest son aspires to American pursuits she cannot understand.
-
-
Puzo's Best
- By Amazon Customer on 02-19-13
By: Mario Puzo
-
The Sympathizer
- A Novel
- By: Viet Thanh Nguyen
- Narrated by: Francois Chau
- Length: 13 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Pulitzer Prize, Fiction, 2016. It is April 1975, and Saigon is in chaos. At his villa, a general of the South Vietnamese army is drinking whiskey and, with the help of his trusted captain, drawing up a list of those who will be given passage aboard the last flights out of the country. The general and his compatriots start a new life in Los Angeles, unaware that one among their number, the captain, is secretly observing and reporting on the group to a higher-up in the Viet Cong.
-
-
The Great Vietnamese Novel(Port)Nguyen's Complaint
- By Joe Kraus on 03-31-16
-
Who Killed My Father
- By: Édouard Louis
- Narrated by: Edouard Louis
- Length: 1 hr and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Who Killed My Father rips into France’s long neglect of the working class and its overt contempt for the poor, accusing the complacent French - at the minimum - of negligent homicide. The author goes to visit the ugly gray town of his childhood to see his dying father, barely 50 years old, who can hardly walk or breathe: “You belong to the category of humans whom politics consigns to an early death.” It’s as simple as that.
-
-
Powerful. Poetic. Sparse. Piercing.
- By Theophile Jones on 06-01-23
By: Édouard Louis
-
Permanent Midnight
- A Memoir (20th Anniversary Edition)
- By: Jerry Stahl, Nic Sheff - foreword
- Narrated by: Jerry Stahl, Scott Merriman
- Length: 11 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A searing confessional infused with the darkest humor, Permanent Midnight chronicles the opiated abyss of a Hollywood screenwriter and his formidable climb into sobriety. Made into a major motion picture starring Ben Stiller and Owen Wilson, Permanent Midnight is revered by critics and an ever-growing cult of devoted fans as one of the most compelling contemporary memoirs.
-
-
Point deduction for the recording
- By Amazon Customer on 11-21-20
By: Jerry Stahl, and others
-
Black Boy
- By: Richard Wright
- Narrated by: Peter Francis James
- Length: 15 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Richard Wright's powerful and eloquent memoir of his journey from innocence to experience in the Jim Crow South. At once an unashamed confession and a profound indictment, Black Boy is a poignant record of struggle and endurance - a seminal literary work that illuminates our own time. The once controversial, now classic American autobiography measures the brutality and rawness of the Jim Crow South against the sheer desperate will it took to survive as a Black boy. Seventy-five years later, his words continue to reverberate.
-
-
Outstanding
- By Trevin Harvey on 11-11-20
By: Richard Wright
-
Mercy Among the Children
- A Novel
- By: David Adams Richards
- Narrated by: Bernard Clark
- Length: 13 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Sydney Henderson is a truly great man. As a young man, Sydney, believing he has accidentally killed a friend, makes a pact with God, promising never to harm another if the boy's life is spared. In the years that follow, the almost pathologically gentle Sydney holds true to his promise - at terrible cost to himself and his family. Stunningly beautiful and haunting, scenes from this magisterial novel will remain etched in the mind forever.
-
-
Epic story
- By jhar14 on 06-04-22
-
The Fortunate Pilgrim
- By: Mario Puzo
- Narrated by: John Kenneth
- Length: 9 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Lucia Santa has traveled 3,000 miles of dark ocean, from the mountain farms of Italy to the streets of New York, hoping for a better life. Instead, she finds herself in Hell's Kitchen, in a bad marriage, raising six children on her own. As Lucia struggles to hold her family together, her daughter confronts the adult world of work and romance while her eldest son is drawn into the Mafia. Meanwhile, her youngest son aspires to American pursuits she cannot understand.
-
-
Puzo's Best
- By Amazon Customer on 02-19-13
By: Mario Puzo
-
The Sympathizer
- A Novel
- By: Viet Thanh Nguyen
- Narrated by: Francois Chau
- Length: 13 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Pulitzer Prize, Fiction, 2016. It is April 1975, and Saigon is in chaos. At his villa, a general of the South Vietnamese army is drinking whiskey and, with the help of his trusted captain, drawing up a list of those who will be given passage aboard the last flights out of the country. The general and his compatriots start a new life in Los Angeles, unaware that one among their number, the captain, is secretly observing and reporting on the group to a higher-up in the Viet Cong.
-
-
The Great Vietnamese Novel(Port)Nguyen's Complaint
- By Joe Kraus on 03-31-16
-
The Seven or Eight Deaths of Stella Fortuna
- A Novel
- By: Juliet Grames
- Narrated by: Lisa Flanagan
- Length: 16 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
For Stella Fortuna, death has always been a part of life. Stella’s childhood is full of strange, life-threatening incidents - moments where ordinary situations like cooking eggplant or feeding the pigs inexplicably take lethal turns. Even Stella’s own mother is convinced that her daughter is cursed or haunted. When the Fortunas emigrate to America on the cusp of World War II, Stella and her sister, Tina, must come of age side by side in a hostile new world with strict expectations for each of them.
-
-
Misogyny at its worst
- By brenda on 01-15-20
By: Juliet Grames
-
Point B
- A Teleportation Love Story
- By: Drew Magary
- Narrated by: Rebecca Soler
- Length: 15 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When the corporate monolith PortSys brought porting to the masses, CEO Emilia Kirsch and her son, Jason, accomplished what every other start-up company had failed to deliver. They really did change the world. They reversed climate change. They created a multitrillion-dollar industry out of thin air, curing economic woes across the globe. They made it so that anyone could be anywhere simply by touching a screen...including the man who murdered Sarah Huff. Now, Sarah’s 17-year-old sister, Anna, is determined to hunt the bastard down. But there are a few problems.
-
-
Sherry Potter’s only got one spell: portkey
- By aaron gilbert on 11-02-20
By: Drew Magary
-
What Storm, What Thunder
- By: Myriam J.A. Chancy
- Narrated by: Ella Turenne
- Length: 11 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Earth had buckled, and, in that movement, all that was not in its place fell upon the Earth’s children, upon the blameless as well as the guilty, without discrimination. At the end of a long sweltering day, as markets and businesses begin to close for the evening, an earthquake of 7.0 magnitude shakes the capital of Haiti, Port-au-Prince. Award-winning author Myriam J. A. Chancy masterfully charts the inner lives of the characters affected by the disaster
-
-
We need the storm, the whirlwind, and the earthquake.
- By AuthorAnnaBella on 03-15-22
-
My Life as a Rat
- A Novel
- By: Joyce Carol Oates
- Narrated by: Sadie Alexandru
- Length: 13 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
My Life as a Rat follows Violet Rue Kerrigan, a young woman who looks back upon her life in exile from her family following her testimony, at age 12, concerning what she knew to be the racist murder of an African American boy by her older brothers. In a succession of vividly recalled episodes, Violet contemplates the circumstances of her life as the initially beloved youngest child of seven Kerrigan children who inadvertently “informs” on her brothers, setting into motion their arrests and convictions and her own long estrangement.
-
-
Heavy Topics & Satisfying Story
- By Oscar on 06-30-19
-
The Ungrateful Refugee
- What Immigrants Never Tell You
- By: Dina Nayeri
- Narrated by: Dina Nayeri
- Length: 10 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Aged eight, Dina Nayeri fled Iran along with her mother and brother and lived in the crumbling shell of an Italian hotel-turned-refugee camp. Eventually, she was granted asylum in America. She settled in Oklahoma, then made her way to Princeton University. In this book, Nayeri weaves together her own vivid story with the stories of other refugees and asylum seekers in recent years, bringing us inside their daily lives and taking us through the different stages of their journeys, from escape to asylum to resettlement.
-
-
Amazing story of resilience and compassion
- By PAH on 09-06-19
By: Dina Nayeri
-
Mercy House
- A Novel
- By: Alena Dillon
- Narrated by: Dawn Harvey, Catherine Ho, Scarlette Hayes, and others
- Length: 9 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Inside a century-old row house in Brooklyn, renegade Sister Evelyn and her fellow nuns preside over a safe haven for the abused and abandoned. Gruff and indomitable on the surface, warm and wry underneath, little daunts Evelyn, until she receives word that Mercy House will be investigated by Bishop Hawkins, a man with whom she shares a dark history. In order to protect everything they’ve built, the nuns must conceal many of their methods, which are forbidden by the Catholic Church.
-
-
Good story but trigger warning
- By Lynne H. Mock on 05-18-20
By: Alena Dillon
-
Final Cuts
- New Tales of Hollywood Horror and Other Spectacles
- By: Ellen Datlow
- Narrated by: Khristine Hvam
- Length: 15 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From the secret reels of a notoriously cursed cinematic masterpiece to the debauched livestreams of modern movie junkies who will do anything for clicks, Final Cuts brings together new and terrifying stories inspired by the many screens we can't peel our eyes away from. Inspired by the rich golden age of the film and television industries as well as the new media present, this new anthology reveals what evils hide behind the scenes and between the frames of our favorite medium.
-
-
Not Poor, Not Rich
- By Gary & Jay on 08-23-20
By: Ellen Datlow
-
Lay Your Sleeping Head
- The Henry Rios Mysteries, Book 1
- By: Michael Nava
- Narrated by: Thom Rivera
- Length: 7 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A completely revised edition of the first Henry Rios mystery, The Little Death, Lay Your Sleeping Head introduces Michael Nava’s singular protagonist, gay Latino criminal defense lawyer Henry Rios. Rios, beset by personal and professional problems, begins a passionate affair with the black sheep heir to a great California fortune who tells Rios an improbable tale of murder and sexual predation in his wealthy family. When the young man is found dead of an apparent drug overdose, Rios begins an investigation that ultimately reveals much more than murder.
-
-
Loved It
- By Leah Brock on 06-20-20
By: Michael Nava
-
Fury
- By: Salman Rushdie
- Narrated by: Salman Rushdie
- Length: 9 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The world renowned author of The Satanic Verses and The Ground Beneath Her Feet, Salman Rushdie is a Whitbread Award winner and recipient of the Booker Prize. His first truly American novel, Fury is a metaphorically rich black comedy that reflects the pressure-cooker of modern life. Malik Solanka, irascible doll-maker and retired historian of ideas, suffers the pain of wanting without knowing exactly what it is he wants.
-
-
surprisingly good
- By David on 11-21-07
By: Salman Rushdie
-
We Begin at the End
- By: Chris Whitaker
- Narrated by: George Newbern
- Length: 10 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Duchess Day Radley is a 13-year-old self-proclaimed outlaw. Rules are for other people. She is the fierce protector of her five-year-old brother, Robin, and the parent to her mother, Star, a single mom incapable of taking care of herself, let alone her two kids. Walk has never left the coastal California town where he and Star grew up. He may have become the chief of police, but he’s still trying to heal the old wound of having given the testimony that sent his best friend, Vincent King, to prison decades before. And he's in overdrive protecting Duchess and her brother.
-
-
Horrible narrator in this audible book
- By M. patton on 03-03-21
By: Chris Whitaker
-
He Came in with It
- A Portrait of Motherhood and Madness
- By: Miriam Feldman
- Narrated by: Ann Richardson
- Length: 11 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In an idyllic Los Angeles neighborhood, where generations enjoy deep roots in old homes, the O’Rourke family fits right in. Miriam and Craig are both artists and their four children carry on the legacy. When their teenage son, Nick, is diagnosed with schizophrenia, a tumultuous decade ensues in which the family careens off the conventional course. Like the 10 Biblical plagues, they are hit by one catastrophe after another: violence, evictions, arrests, a suicide attempt, a near-drowning - even cancer and a brain tumor - play against the backdrop of a wild teenage bacchanal.
-
-
So Beautifully Written
- By Michael on 08-01-22
By: Miriam Feldman
-
Alburquerque
- By: Rudolfo Anaya
- Narrated by: Timothy Andrés Pabon
- Length: 10 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Abrán González always knew he was different. Called a coyote because of his fair skin, the kid from Barelas found escape through boxing and became one of the youngest Golden Gloves champs. But the arrival of a letter from a dying woman turns his entire life into a lie. The revelation that he was adopted makes him feel like an orphan and sends him on a quest to find his birth father.
-
-
Alburquerque
- By Paul Hernandez on 04-29-20
By: Rudolfo Anaya
What listeners say about Mother for Dinner
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Oded Davidov
- 09-27-20
Loved it
An innovative, critical and humorous yet serious look into identity, heritage, etheniticity and shared histories. If you like Auslander's work, you won't be disappointed. By creating a fictitious (or maybe not?) "Cannibal-American" society of immigrants, he manages to take a critical deep dive into ethnic polarization in society while maintaining a light atmosphere all throughout the story, while managing to escape the "for Jews only" vibe of his other work. I believe everyone can find some of their own family in this book.
I also find the way he narrates his own work excellent, unlike many self-narrating authors.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- The Mindfulness Guru
- 09-06-21
Great Satire
Shalom Auslander’s latest novel, Mother for Dinner, is a satiric masterpiece, worthy of Voltaire and Diderot. For anyone with a deep knowledge of Jewish ritual and history, this book is a hilarious take. By using the fictional religion of cannibals, Auslander produces a characteristically comedic romp. All of Auslander’s novels and short stories are worth exploring, and this one is one of his best.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Arthur
- 04-27-22
brilliant but wierd
brilliant novel about prejudice, political correctness and a host of other issues. Not for everyone but i loved it.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Larry Lyles
- 06-21-22
Tedious
Determination got me to the end. I was anticipating a moment when I could feel it was clever and wickedly funny. In vain, alas. It slogged and slogged. Might have been effective at one-quarter the length, but as is, lots better uses of time out there.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- D.A. Stone
- 03-08-22
Funniest, wildest, craziest stuff I have ever listened to.
This book may be the best I satire I have ever read (listened to).
I have never come across a work so brilliantly adapt at skewering ethnocentrism, ethnic narcissism and out and out racism and bigotry so thoroughly and hilariously. I did not think that Auslander was capable of toping his 2012 novel Hope: A Tragedy, but I think he may have.
Everyone who wants to understand just how preposterous so many parts of American culture have become as well as the terrible weight that many people feel compelled to impose upon themselves. Auslander does all while making the reader (listener) laugh so hard that soiling oneself or hyperventilation remain a constant possibility.
Funnier and smarter than I would have thought possible. Should be read by anyone who loves great comedy and intelligent commentary through nearly perfect storytelling. Auslander is the ****!
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
2 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Sarah Popian
- 04-23-24
A great cynical view of the great melting pot
Cynical view of the great melting pot for everyone not just one label that we give ourselves. The Reader is not the best but does a good job.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- io2
- 11-24-20
An absolute riot
Delicious, so fantastically delicious in fact, I might just come back for seconds.
A veritable tour de force of story telling and narration.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Todd Stapleman
- 10-15-20
weird and entertaining
a wonderful and entertaining book covering an unusual family and culture. I enjoyed it very much.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Jareth
- 12-17-21
a deep delve into an unknown culture
Shalom takes his personal upbringing through a culture that was unpleasant and flipped it into something unknown but the book itself leaves you guessing what's going to come next! I personally couldn't stop laughing/listening to this dark comedy. wasn't the greatest fan of the ending but still enjoyed it nonetheless.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!