
Returning to Earth
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Narrated by:
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Traci Svendsgaard
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Tom Weiner
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Ray Porter
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Richard Powers
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By:
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Jim Harrison
About this listen
In this sequel to Harrison's True North, Donald Burkett, a middle-aged Chippewa-Finnish man, is dying of Lou Gehrig's disease. While his wife, Cynthia, transcribes, Donald begins dictating his family history for the benefit of their children - stories that he has never before shared.
As old crimes, dreams, wounds, and sacred moments are revived for the members of Donald's family, each is affected in different and profound ways. Each will describe in his or her own voice the inner journey catalyzed by Donald's death and legacy.
This is a deeply moving book about origins and endings, about honoring life, honoring the dead, and finding redemption in unlikely places.
©2007 Jim Harrison (P)2007 Blackstone Audio Inc.Listeners also enjoyed...
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Sundog
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- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Sundog is a powerful novel about the life and loves of a foreman named Robert Corvus Strang, who worked on giant dam projects around the world until he was crippled in a fall down a 300-foot dam. Now as he tries to regain use of his legs, he has a chance to reassess his life, and a blasé journalist who has heard of Strang’s reputation in the field arrives to draw him out about his various incarnations.
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Great listen
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Wolf tells the story of a man who - after too many nameless women and drunken nights - leaves Manhattan to roam the wilderness of northern Michigan, hoping to catch a glimpse of the rare wolves that prowl that territory. Returning Harrison fans will be ecstatic to re-discover this early novel once again, and for new listeners, this work serves as the perfect introduction to Harrison’s remarkable insight, storytelling skill, and evocation of the natural world.
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Can't finish it...
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By: Jim Harrison
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Performance
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Jim Harrison's popular novels represent only part of his literary output—he has also been widely acclaimed for the "renegade genius" of his powerful expressive verse, collected in several books such as The Theory and Practice of Rivers and Other Poems (Clark City Press, 1989). After Ikkyu is the first collection of Harrison's poems that are directly inspired by his many years of Zen practice.
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Nice mix of verses capturing Harrison the Poet
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great collection in spite of performance flaws
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The Search for the Genuine
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Performance
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New York Times bestselling author Jim Harrison (1937-2016) was a writer with a poet’s economy of style and trencherman’s appetites and ribald humor. In The Search for the Genuine, a collection of new and previously published essays, the giant of letters muses on everything from grouse hunting and fishing to Zen Buddhism and matters of the spirit, including reported pieces on Yellowstone and shark-tagging in the open ocean, commentary on writers from Bukowski to Neruda to Peter Matthiessen, and a heartbreaking essay on life on the US/Mexico border.
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Meh.
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RARE AND WONDERFUL STORIES!
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Critic reviews
"Harrison's characters speak with a gripping frankness and intimacy about their own shortcomings and delve into their grief with keen sympathy." (Publishers Weekly)
"Harrison sounds the themes he has been working out over the course of his long and prolific career, including the healing power of nature and the deep connection between the sensual and the spiritual....Harrison displays a seemingly effortless ability to present abstract issues in earthy, muscular prose." (Booklist)
What listeners say about Returning to Earth
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- I miss Tee
- 07-01-16
Great writing, narrators are ok
After "True North" this is one of Jim Harrison's best books. I would suggest reading True North first to become familiar with the characters. His writing style is a thick "stream of consciousness" woven into the lives of both eclectic and everyday people. similar to the narration of true north.
As a Michiganian and big Jim Harrison fan,I was a little irritated that the readers don't sound like they're from Michigan, and they mispronounce some of the place names. Maybe it's too much to expect that the narrators are thoroughly familiar with the story and characters, but it was especially irritating when a girl from Chicago was given a Hispanic accent just because the scene took place in Mexico.
Despite these few criticisms, I wish more Harrison books were narrated, as it's a great way to "reread" my favorites.
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- mollygirl
- 04-02-21
Great Writer
Good Narration except the narrators have some of the pronunciation wrong for proper nouns. Check with the author for correct pronunciation.
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- Tedward
- 02-02-23
Phoning it home, but good company
Not his best but he’s better than Netflix even at his worst, I do believe.
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- escoocoo
- 05-03-24
A Bit of a Disappointment
Not as good as book one (True North). To be fair, I had to rush through this one because I only had hours to complete before being locked out of Audible Plus. Another very good ending, however, just as in the first book. The narration was iffy, and I was quite irritated by the female narrator for Cynthia, who did not at all fit the character of who I understood Cynthia to be. Huh! 🤔
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Overall
- Brian Michael Fielding
- 12-03-08
Powerful Genuine Realistic
Jim Harrison's novels are great American stories filled with richly drawn characters. His writing is deeply literate and honest. He writes about fundamental truths. "Returning to Earth" is a beautiful story set at the end of one man's life. It focus's with Harrison's usual poetic brilliance on how he and his extended family choose to deal with that ending. It has profound life lessons for all. Highly recommended.
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3 people found this helpful
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- Missy Miller
- 12-04-22
Another great Harrison work.
I haven’t read a Harrison book in years and am so glad I found this one. Highly recommend.
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- G. Green
- 05-17-16
A Great Book
Jim Harrison is one of the greatest writers of our time. If you have not read Jim Harrison, True North, to which this is the sequel, is a good place to start. I give the performance only four stars because the first-person narrators should be from the Upper Peninsula and speak in a manner appropriate to their characters. It is unfortunate that, with most narration of fiction and autobiography, so little insight is used in casting narrators. The narrators of this book are all good; they just are not quite right for the characters.
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- Paul Z.
- 08-19-22
Lazy Narrators
This is not Harrison’s best work, but half of the narrators were too lazy to find out how to properly pronounce the names of places in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula.
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- Jamie Lamb
- 08-03-22
Narration complaint
Soo St. marie is how Sault St. marie is pronounced. Most of the narrators on this story messed that up and messed it up differently from each other.
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- H.Hurst
- 10-18-18
Nope.
This book was terrible.. The story line was all over the place, the stories were odd, and the characters were super odd. I enjoyed the Native American references on religion and culture, but the relationships (love triangles) throughout the book were both confusing, weird, and terrible.
I would not recommend this book to anyone. If you're looking to read something insightful concerning ALS, this is NOT the book for you. If you're looking to read something insightful to life, this is NOT the book for you. If you're simply looking for a good read, this is NOT the book for you. Nope.
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