The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation, Volume 1
The Pox Party
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Narrated by:
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Peter Francis James
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By:
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M. T. Anderson
About this listen
National Book Award, Young People's Literature, 2006
He is a boy dressed in silks and white wigs and given the finest of classical educations. Raised by a group of rational philosophers known only by numbers, the boy and his mother, a princess in exile from a faraway land, are the only people in their household assigned names. As the boy's regal mother, Cassiopeia, entertains the house scholars with her beauty and wit, young Octavian begins to question the purpose behind his guardians' fanatical studies. Only after he dares to open a forbidden door does he learn the hideous nature of their experiments - and his own chilling role in them.
The first of two volumes, this deeply provocative audiobook reimagines the past as an eerie place that has startling resonance for listeners today.
©2006 M.T. Anderson (P)2007 Random House, Inc. Listening Library, an imprint of the Random House Audio Publishing GroupListeners also enjoyed...
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The Pale Blue Eye
- By: Louis Bayard
- Narrated by: Charles Leggett
- Length: 15 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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When the body of a suicide victim disappears at West Point Military Academy in 1831, only to be discovered hours later missing its heart, the Academy calls on retired detective Gus Landor to investigate. Landor is something of a legend among his peers, noted for an uncanny, Holmesian ability to read people. When Edgar Allan Poe, a new cadet, comes forth with his own cryptic conclusion—that the man Landor is looking for is a poet—Landor is intrigued and enlists Poe as his assistant.
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Could not get through it
- By Amazon Customer on 10-25-15
By: Louis Bayard
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Orlando
- By: Virginia Woolf
- Narrated by: Clare Higgins
- Length: 8 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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Fantasy, love and an exuberant celebration of English life and literature, Orlando is a uniquely entertaining story. Originally conceived by Virginia Woolf as a playful tribute to the family of her friend and lover, Vita Sackville-West, Orlando's central character, a fictional embodiment of Sackville-West, changes sex from a man to a woman and lives throughout the centuries, whilst meeting historical figures of English literature.
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Magical
- By Mayca on 05-31-05
By: Virginia Woolf
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This Dark Endeavor
- The Apprenticeship of Victor Frankenstein, Book 1
- By: Kenneth Oppel
- Narrated by: Luke Daniels
- Length: 8 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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Victor and Konrad are the twin brothers Frankenstein. They are nearly inseparable. Growing up, their lives are filled with imaginary adventures... until the day their adventures turn all too real. They stumble upon The Dark Library, and secret books of alchemy and ancient remedies are discovered. Father forbids that they ever enter the room again, but this only peaks Victor's curiosity more. When Konrad falls gravely ill, Victor is not be satisfied with the various doctors his parents have called in to help. He is drawn back to The Dark Library....
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Chilling and oddly poignant
- By Debra on 10-23-11
By: Kenneth Oppel
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A Christmas Carol
- By: Charles Dickens
- Narrated by: Benjamin May
- Length: 3 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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The timeless tale of Ebenezer Scrooge and his adventures on Christmas Eve continue to teach an important lesson, even to this day. Author Charles Dickens introduces us to the main character by painting him in a negative light, a selfish and miserly old man who will barely pay enough money to keep his office heated. When Scrooge returns home after work, the ghost of his former business partner, Jacob Marley, visits him and tells him that because of the wrongdoing he had done during his life, he has been condemned to walk in his ghost years shackled....
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A Fine audio Interpretation
- By Lee Gregory Stewart on 02-03-23
By: Charles Dickens
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Mary
- Mrs. A. Lincoln
- By: Janis Cooke Newman
- Narrated by: Anne Buelteman
- Length: 26 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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A fascinating and intimate novel of the life of Mary Todd Lincoln, narrated by the First Lady herself. Mary Todd Lincoln is one of history's most misunderstood and enigmatic women. She was a political strategist, a supporter of emancipation, and a mother who survived the loss of three children and the assassination of her beloved husband. She also ran her family into debt, held séances in the White House, and was committed to an insane asylum - which is where Janis Cooke Newman's debut novel begins.
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Intriguing and well-written, Worst editing EVER.
- By Danielle on 03-21-15
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Shaman's Crossing, Book One of the Soldier Son Trilogy
- By: Robin Hobb
- Narrated by: John Keating
- Length: 24 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
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Hugo and Nebula Award finalist Robin Hobb crafts intricate fantasy tales featuring larger-than-life characters and exotic landscapes. Nevare Burvelle survives the King’s Cavalla Academy—where nepotism and corruption reign—to become a soldier in the Gernian king’s army. As he and his fellow soldiers are thrust onto the front lines of the king’s brutal territorial expansion campaign, they struggle against the Plainspeople—forest-dwellers who possess a powerful magic long dismissed by the Gernians.
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Sometimes Magic Isn't A Good Thing
- By Therese M. Woolley on 10-18-13
By: Robin Hobb
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The Mark of the Beast
- By: Rudyard Kipling
- Narrated by: B.J. Harrison
- Length: 33 mins
- Unabridged
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When a carousing Englishman disgraces the consecrated effigy of Hanuman, a leprous "Silver Man" marks him with a hideous curse. The ensuing night brings new terrors to the house of the doomed man.
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Must listen again
- By uffdasuzanne on 10-06-17
By: Rudyard Kipling
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The Architect's Apprentice
- By: Elif Shafak
- Narrated by: Piter Marek
- Length: 16 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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In 1540, 12-year-old Jahan arrives in Istanbul. As an animal tamer in the sultan's menagerie, he looks after the exceptionally smart elephant Chota and befriends (and falls for) the sultan's beautiful daughter Princess Mihrimah. A palace education leads Jahan to Mimar Sinan, the empire's chief architect, who takes Jahan under his wing as they construct (with Chota's help) some of the most magnificent buildings in history.
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I feel like I should like it more than I do
- By nyog on 04-19-17
By: Elif Shafak
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Quillifer
- Quillifer, Book 1
- By: Walter Jon Williams
- Narrated by: Ralph Lister
- Length: 18 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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Performance
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Story
Quillifer is young, serially in love, studying law, and living each day keenly aware that his beloved homeport of Ethlebight risks closure due to silting of the harbor. His concerns for the future become much more immediate when he returns from a summery assignation to find his city attacked by Aekoi pirates, leading to brigands in the streets and his family and friends in chains.
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The opposite of George R R Martin (in a good way)
- By A reader on 10-30-17
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Les Miserables
- By: Victor Hugo
- Narrated by: David Case
- Length: 12 hrs and 25 mins
- Abridged
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Les Misérables emphasizes the three major predicaments of the 19th century, each symbolized by a major character: Jean Valjean represents the degradation of man in the proletariat, Fantine represents the subjection of women through hunger, and Cosette represents the atrophy of the child by darkness.
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TOO Abridged, Read Only if You Won't Read More
- By Syd Young on 02-03-14
By: Victor Hugo
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What listeners say about The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation, Volume 1
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall
- Shelly M. Felton
- 03-29-07
Compelling
This book is extraordinary: graceful, imaginative writing; excellent narration; fascinating story. But for those wishing for a lightheartedly merry romp through imaginaryland, you should consider another book. The novel explores grim aspects of our nation's early history - it is gripping, but also heartbreaking. Read it! But not when you're down in the dumps.
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10 people found this helpful
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- Parthiv N. Parekh
- 12-05-19
Slow
It’s a good book but it’s way too slow. The climax is late and it is slow
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Overall
- Ryan
- 09-20-10
YA fiction at its very best
A fantastic book. Set in Boston before and during the opening of Revolutionary War, Octavian Nothing tells the odd story of a young boy of African origin, who is raised with the finest classical education by a college of philosophers as part of a noble experiment. Yet, there is much about the world he has been kept ignorant of, including the fact that the men who would establish a new democracy prosper from the labor of slaves who look like him and have no intention of freeing them. Though this might have been a pedestrian premise in the hands of another author, Anderson's colorful characters, keen wit, and delightful use of 18th century language make for a rich, unique narrative, its fanciful-sounding tone artfully masking a moving, serious work.
Like the very best YA authors, Anderson never sells short the reader's intelligence, putting Octavian in situations where the truth isn't always pretty and questions without answers lead Octavian to even more challenging questions and ideas. Some of these are probably a little over the head of the average 13 year old (or likely to annoy the kind of overprotective parents who can't accept that their kids might be able to reason for themselves), but Anderson handles the weightier concepts with subtlety, allowing them to exert their gravitational pull on the reader's mind without interfering with the story. Which is entertaining, full of twists, poignant, and wonderfully written. The kind of book someone can read in adolescence, then enjoy again in a few years as an adult, with a different take.
If you enjoy American history from a different angle, language, and storytelling at its finest, don't overlook this one. M.T. Anderson rocks.
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12 people found this helpful
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Overall
- Wetta
- 06-06-11
Octavian Something
Although I have been a member of Audible for three years, this is the first review I've felt compelled to give. Octavian Nothing is a powerful--and powerfully humane--story about the triumph of the individual spirit in the face of soul-withering oppression. Although fiction (and YA at that!), it is grounded in and illuminates a little-known chapter in the now near-mythological period of the colonies, as our nation-to-be tests the boundaries between loyalty and independence and finds itself on the eve of revolution. Give the book time--no small request, of course, in the digital age. Octavian Nothing unfolds slowly but surely, aided in no small part by Peter Francis James's wonderfully sure narration. By the end you will be fully in the grips of a master writer and storyteller. No spoilers here, but there are parts that are purely heartbreaking; I was late to work on more than one occasion just to hear how things concluded.
And while you're at it, go ahead and download the second volume, which fulfills the promises of this one.
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6 people found this helpful
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Overall
- twohands
- 12-06-17
Great book
This book is very good I would highly recommend . Is a fasst and good read
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Overall
- Laura
- 06-05-09
Octavian Something
This is a wonderful, heartbreaking tale of a young Prince in pre-revolutionary America who comes to find out he is also a slave and the subject of an intense scientific study. Smart and insightful, it examines the best and worst of the American character and humanity as a whole. Plus,it's great as an audio book.
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2 people found this helpful
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- Jeff Row
- 01-08-20
Excellent
Excellent reading and even more excellently written. The author nocks it out of the park again.
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- Amazon Customer
- 02-03-23
Wonderful Piece of Literature
This was my first experience using Audible. The experience was very well. I enjoyed the book and the narrator was phenomenal. I love period pièces and I recommend this book.
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- Kassie
- 03-20-18
Octavian nothing
was a struggle to finish boring, very dry and slow moving had to read school
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1 person found this helpful
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Overall
- B. Tetrault
- 10-17-09
I really wanted to like this book..
I just couldn't. I just felt nothing for the characters, and in the end, was unable to finish it.
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2 people found this helpful