
Shiner
A Novel
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Narrated by:
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Catherine Taber
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By:
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Amy Jo Burns
About this listen
Named a Best Book of 2020 by NPR
"Amy Jo Burns writes a version of Appalachia that is one step removed from magic - all strychnine and moonshine and powerful wonder." (NPR)
"[A] wrenching testament, told in language as incandescent as smoldering coal... This is not a despairing book, but a hopeful one, of Appalachian women taking back their life stories." (New York Times Book Review)
On a lush mountaintop trapped in time, two women vow to protect each other at all costs - and one young girl must defy her father to survive.
An hour from the closest West Virginia mining town, 15-year-old Wren Bird lives in a cloistered mountain cabin with her parents. They have no car, no mailbox, and no visitors - except for her mother's lifelong best friend. Every Sunday, Wren's father delivers winding sermons in an abandoned gas station, where he takes up serpents and praises the Lord for his blighted white eye, proof of his divinity and key to the hold he has over the community, over Wren and her mother.
But over the course of one summer, a miracle performed by Wren's father quickly turns to tragedy. As the order of her world begins to shatter, Wren must uncover the truth of her father's mysterious legend and her mother's harrowing history and complex bond with her best friend. And with that newfound knowledge, Wren can imagine a different future for herself than she has been told to expect.
Rich with epic love and epic loss, and diving deep into a world that is often forgotten but still part of America, Shiner reveals the hidden story behind two generations' worth of Appalachian heartbreak and resolve. Amy Jo Burns brings us a smoldering, taut debut novel about modern female myth-making in a land of men - and one young girl who must ultimately open her eyes.
©2020 Amy Jo Burns (P)2020 Penguin AudioListeners also enjoyed...
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Critic reviews
“A compelling fever-dream of a novel crafted out of moonshine and jagged miracles, Shiner is simply perfect. I loved every moment spent in the world Amy Jo Burns so thoroughly evokes; I already know I will return to it again and again. Do not miss this exceptional debut.” (Joshilyn Jackson, New York Times best-selling author of Never Have I Ever)
"In spare yet lyrical prose, Amy Jo Burns brings to life a brutal landscape and its dangerous, alluring inhabitants. A haunting glimpse into a strange, mystical world with its own laws and customs, filled with fiercely independent people, this novel combines a memoir-like intimacy with the mythic power of a fable. Burns is a writer to be watched." (Christina Baker Kline, number-one New York Times best-selling author of Orphan Train and A Piece of the World)
"Amy Jo Burns writes masterful sentences changed with all the beauty and rage and struggle of her characters. From the first paragraph to the last, Burns builds a vibrant and complex story of myths and miracles and moonshiners, as well as of the women who fight for their lives and their dignity as their future in a culture that all too often strangles all three. Shiner is a gorgeous novel." (Phil Klay, National Book Award-winning author of Redeployment)
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Story
Colorado, January 1977. Eighty-year-old Edith Goodnough lies in a hospital bed, IV taped to the back of her hand, police officer at her door. She is charged with murder. The clues: a sack of chicken feed slit with a knife, a milky-eyed dog tied outdoors one cold afternoon. The motives: the brutal business of farming and a family code of ethics as unforgiving as the winter prairie itself.
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Sad, No Real Conclusion and Pointless
- By Debbie on 03-28-24
By: Kent Haruf
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The Borrower
- A Novel
- By: Rebecca Makkai
- Narrated by: Kristen Sieh
- Length: 8 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Lucy Hull, a young children's librarian in Hannibal, Missouri, finds herself both a kidnapper and kidnapped when her favorite patron, 10-year-old Ian Drake, runs away from home. The precocious Ian is addicted to reading but needs Lucy's help to smuggle books past his overbearing mother, who has enrolled Ian in weekly antigay classes with celebrity Pastor Bob. Lucy stumbles into a moral dilemma when she finds Ian camped out in the library after hours with a knapsack of provisions and an escape plan.
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Great story and great performance!
- By Anonymous User on 01-29-21
By: Rebecca Makkai
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The Daughter Ship
- A Novel
- By: Boo Trundle
- Narrated by: Xe Sands, Justis Bolding, Michael Crouch, and others
- Length: 7 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Katherine, an attentive mother to her teenagers, comfortably married to her strapping provider of a husband, longs to overcome her dark thoughts and intermittent fears of sexual intimacy. This brisk, mesmerizing version of her life is told in alternating short chapters by Truitt, Star, and Smooshed Bug—her inner children, each with their particular strategy for coping with Katherine’s past at the hands of a hopeless mother and a terrifying, seductive father.
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So accurate
- By AJ250 on 07-18-23
By: Boo Trundle
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The Book of Fire
- A Novel
- By: Christy Lefteri
- Narrated by: Alix Dunmore
- Length: 9 hrs
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
In present-day Greece, deep in an ancient forest, lives a family: Irini, a musician, who teaches children to read and play music; her husband, Tasso, who paints pictures of the forest, his greatest muse; and Chara, their young daughter, whose name means joy. On the fateful day that will forever alter the trajectory of their lives, flames chase fleeing birds across the sky. The wildfire that will consume their home, and their lives as they know it, races toward them.
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Disappointment
- By Anonymous User on 01-27-24
By: Christy Lefteri
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Rules for Visiting
- A Novel
- By: Jessica Francis Kane
- Narrated by: Emily Rankin
- Length: 6 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
At 40, May Attaway is more at home with plants than people. Over the years, she's turned inward, finding pleasure in language, her work as a gardener, and keeping her neighbors at arm's length while keenly observing them. But when she is unexpectedly granted some leave from her job, May is inspired to reconnect with four once close friends. She knows they will never have a proper reunion, so she goes, one by one, to each of them. A student of the classics, May considers her journey a female Odyssey.
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Charming, poignant, and utterly engaging
- By CDN on 06-22-19
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The Friday Night Club
- A Novel of Artist Hilma af Klint and Her Creative Circle
- By: Sofia Lundberg, Alyson Richman, M.J. Rose
- Narrated by: Tavia Gilbert, Pete Cross, Alyson Richman
- Length: 8 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Early 1900s: The world belongs to men, and the art world in Stockholm, Sweden, is no different, until Hilma af Klint brings together a mysterious group of female painters and writers—Anna, Cornelia, Sigrid, and Mathilda—to form their own emotional and artistic support system. The members of the Friday Night Club find themselves thrust into uncharted territory when Hilma and her best friend, Anna, begin dabbling in the occult, believing that through séances they can channel unseen spirits to help them achieve their potential as artists.
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The most important book I’ve read in many years
- By Dane R Rowley on 09-30-23
By: Sofia Lundberg, and others
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Four Squares
- By: Bobby Finger
- Narrated by: David Pittu
- Length: 9 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
In 1992, on his thirtieth birthday, Artie Anderson meets the man who will change his life. Artie spends his days at a tedious advertising job, finding relief in the corner of New York City he can call his own, even as the queer community is still being ravaged by HIV. But when his birthday celebration brings Artie and his friends to his favorite bar, a chance encounter with Abe, an uptight lawyer and Artie’s opposite in almost every way, pushes Artie to want, and to ask for, more for himself.
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Subtle, heart wrenching, excellent writing
- By Anonymous User on 07-09-24
By: Bobby Finger
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Between You and Us
- A Novel
- By: Kendra Broekhuis
- Narrated by: Anna Caputo
- Length: 9 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
When Leona Warlon heads across the city to meet her husband, David, for a rare dinner out, she hopes they can share a moment of relief after their year of loss. But Leona quickly realizes this is no ordinary date night. She hasn’t just stepped into an upscale ristorante; she’s stepped into a different version of her life. One in which her marriage is no longer tender, in which her days are pressured by her powerful in-laws, and in which her precious baby girl lived.
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Such a great book!!
- By Mykayla Johnson on 10-10-24
By: Kendra Broekhuis
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At the Edge of the Orchard
- By: Tracy Chevalier
- Narrated by: Hillary Huber, Mark Bramhall, Kirby Heyborne, and others
- Length: 9 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
1838: James and Sadie Goodenough have settled where their wagon got stuck - in the muddy, stagnant swamps of northwest Ohio. They and their five children work relentlessly to tame their patch of land, buying saplings from a local tree man known as John Appleseed so they can cultivate the 50 apple trees required to stake their claim on the property. But the orchard they plant sows the seeds of a long battle. James loves the apples, reminders of an easier life back in Connecticut; while Sadie prefers the applejack they make, an alcoholic refuge from brutal frontier life.
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The performance was superb
- By cheryl retired bookseller on 05-30-17
By: Tracy Chevalier
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The Lost Letter
- A Novel
- By: Jillian Cantor
- Narrated by: Allyson Ryan, George Newbern, Betsy Struxness, and others
- Length: 9 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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Story
A historical novel of love and survival inspired by real resistance workers during World War II Austria and the mysterious love letter that connects generations of Jewish families, The Lost Letter reveals the lasting power of love.
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This was absolutely fantastic!!!
- By Jennifer Masterson on 06-22-17
By: Jillian Cantor
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Long Division
- A Novel
- By: Kiese Laymon
- Narrated by: Ruffin Prentiss III, Jaime Lincoln Smith
- Length: 8 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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Story
Written in a voice that’s alternately humorous, lacerating, and wise, Long Division features two interwoven stories. In the first, it’s 2013: after an on-stage meltdown during a nationally televised quiz contest, fourteen-year-old Citoyen “City” Coldson becomes an overnight YouTube celebrity. The next day, he’s sent to stay with his grandmother in the small coastal community of Melahatchie. Before leaving, City is given a strange book without an author called Long Division. He learns that one of the book’s main characters is also named City Coldson—but Long Division is set in 1985.
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Quickly becoming one of my favorite authors, but...
- By Sherrye LeRoy on 05-08-25
By: Kiese Laymon
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The Spoiled Heart
- A Novel
- By: Sunjeev Sahota
- Narrated by: Esh Alladi
- Length: 9 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Nayan Olak keeps seeing Helen Fletcher around town. She’s returned with her teenage son to live in the run-down house at the end of the lane, and—though she’s strangely guarded—Nayan can’t help but be drawn to her. He hasn’t risked love since losing his young family in a terrible accident twenty years earlier.
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The Political Gets Personal
- By David on 09-20-24
By: Sunjeev Sahota
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Real Life
- A Novel
- By: Brandon Taylor
- Narrated by: Kevin R. Free
- Length: 9 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Almost everything about Wallace is at odds with the Midwestern university town where he is working uneasily toward a biochem degree. An introverted young man from Alabama, black and queer, he has left behind his family without escaping the long shadows of his childhood. For reasons of self-preservation, Wallace has enforced a wary distance even within his own circle of friends—some dating each other, some dating women, some feigning straightness.
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Not My Gay Real Life
- By Haynes on 02-29-20
By: Brandon Taylor
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The Sweet Taste of Muscadines
- A Novel
- By: Pamela Terry
- Narrated by: Xe Sands
- Length: 8 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Lila Bruce Breedlove never quite felt at home in Wesleyan, Georgia, especially after her father’s untimely demise when she was a child. Both Lila and her brother, Henry, fled north after high school, establishing fulfilling lives of their own. In contrast, their younger sister, Abigail, opted to remain behind to dote on their domineering, larger-than-life mother, Geneva. When their elderly mother dies suddenly and suspiciously in the muscadine arbor behind the family estate, Lila and Henry return to the town that essentially raised them.
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Absolutely LOVED it!
- By Kenny Cook on 07-07-21
By: Pamela Terry
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The Astonishing Life of August March
- A Novel
- By: Aaron Jackson
- Narrated by: Joel Froomkin
- Length: 7 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Abandoned as an infant by his actress mother in her theater dressing room, August March was raised by an ancient laundress. Highly intelligent, a tad feral, August is a true child of the theater - able to recite Shakespeare before he knew the alphabet. But like all productions, August’s wondrous time inside the theater comes to a close, and he finds himself in the wilds of postwar New York City, where he quickly rises from pickpocket street urchin to star student at the stuffiest boarding school in the nation.
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Delightfully entertaining
- By RueRue on 04-21-20
By: Aaron Jackson
Torn
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Listened Twice
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Kept me interested - listened to it in two days !
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Friends
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So good!
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Gorgeous Writing
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Good
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What a fantastic book!
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wonderfull
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Victim complexes extraordinaire
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