-
The Bag Lady Papers
- The Priceless Experience of Losing It All
- Narrated by: Marguerite Gavin
- Length: 5 hrs and 2 mins
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 $19.49
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
Publisher's summary
Throughout her life, Alexandra Penney's worst fear was becoming a bag lady. Even as she worked several jobs while raising a son as a single mother, wrote a multimillion-dollar best-selling advice book, and became editor in chief of Self magazine, she was haunted by the image of herself alone, bankrupt, and living on the street. She even went to therapy in an attempt to alleviate the nagging in her mind that told her that all she had worked for could crumble. And then, one day, that's exactly what happened.
Alexandra Penney had taken a friend's advice and invested nearly everything she had ever earned with Bernie Madoff. So one day she was successful and wealthy; the next she had almost nothing. Suddenly, at an age when many Americans retire, Penney saw her worst nightmares coming true.
Entertaining and inspiring, The Bag Lady Papers chronicles Penney's struggle to cope with the devastating financial and emotional fallout of being cheated out of her life savings, and traces her journey back to sanity and security. Her outraged blog postings about the Madoff scandal in The Daily Beast and her commentary on CNN have generated millions of hits and earned her a loyal following. How do you pick yourself up after your worst nightmare comes true? Penney shows us how.
Listeners also enjoyed...
-
My Mrs. Brown
- A Novel
- By: William Norwich
- Narrated by: Angela Brazil
- Length: 7 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When the grand dame of Ashville passes away, Mrs. Brown is called upon to inventory her estate and comes across a dress that changes everything. This isn't a Cinderella confection; it's a simple yet exquisitely tailored Oscar de la Renta sheath and jacket - a suit that, Mrs. Brown realizes with startling clarity, will say everything she has ever wished to convey. She must have it. And so Mrs. Brown begins her odyssey to purchase the dress.
-
-
Sweet story
- By Pam Hewitt on 05-01-20
By: William Norwich
-
These Precious Days
- Essays
- By: Ann Patchett
- Narrated by: Ann Patchett
- Length: 11 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
“Any story that starts will also end.” As a writer, Ann Patchett knows what the outcome of her fiction will be. Life, however, often takes turns we do not see coming. Patchett ponders this truth in these wise essays that afford a fresh and intimate look into her mind and heart.
-
-
Heartfelt Essays, Beautifully Performed
- By Brent Holcomb on 11-23-21
By: Ann Patchett
-
I Feel Bad About My Neck
- And Other Thoughts on Being a Woman
- By: Nora Ephron
- Narrated by: Nora Ephron
- Length: 3 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
With her disarming, intimate, completely accessible voice, and dry sense of humor, Nora Ephron shares with us her ups and downs in I Feel Bad About My Neck, a candid, hilarious look at women who are getting older and dealing with the tribulations of maintenance, menopause, empty nests, and life itself.
-
-
Don't make me get out of the car...
- By Kestrel on 10-09-06
By: Nora Ephron
-
This Is the Story of a Happy Marriage
- By: Ann Patchett
- Narrated by: Ann Patchett
- Length: 11 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Blending literature and memoir, Ann Patchett, author of State of Wonder and Bel Canto examines her deepest commitments: to writing, family, friends, dogs, books, and her husband in This Is the Story of a Happy Marriage. Together, these essays, previously published in The Atlantic, Harper, Vogue, and The Washington Post, form a resonant portrait of a life lived with loyalty and with love.
-
-
Entertaining, engrossing, and elucidative essays
- By Bonny on 01-07-14
By: Ann Patchett
-
In Love
- A Memoir of Love and Loss
- By: Amy Bloom
- Narrated by: Amy Bloom
- Length: 4 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Amy Bloom began to notice changes in her husband, Brian: He retired early from a new job he loved; he withdrew from close friendships; he talked mostly about the past. Suddenly, it seemed there was a glass wall between them, and their long walks and talks stopped. Their world was altered forever when an MRI confirmed what they could no longer ignore: Brian had Alzheimer’s disease.
-
-
A helpful,healing memoir
- By Helen on 03-31-22
By: Amy Bloom
-
Kitchen Privileges
- Memoirs of a Bronx Girlhood
- By: Mary Higgins Clark
- Narrated by: Mary Higgins Clark
- Length: 5 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Even as a young girl, growing up in the Bronx, Mary Higgins Clark knew she wanted to be a writer. The gift of storytelling was a part of her Irish ancestry, so it followed naturally that she would later use her sharp eye, keen intelligence, and inquisitive nature to create stories.
-
-
I’ve read and re-read your books
- By Dolores Hylkema on 01-24-19
-
My Mrs. Brown
- A Novel
- By: William Norwich
- Narrated by: Angela Brazil
- Length: 7 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When the grand dame of Ashville passes away, Mrs. Brown is called upon to inventory her estate and comes across a dress that changes everything. This isn't a Cinderella confection; it's a simple yet exquisitely tailored Oscar de la Renta sheath and jacket - a suit that, Mrs. Brown realizes with startling clarity, will say everything she has ever wished to convey. She must have it. And so Mrs. Brown begins her odyssey to purchase the dress.
-
-
Sweet story
- By Pam Hewitt on 05-01-20
By: William Norwich
-
These Precious Days
- Essays
- By: Ann Patchett
- Narrated by: Ann Patchett
- Length: 11 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
“Any story that starts will also end.” As a writer, Ann Patchett knows what the outcome of her fiction will be. Life, however, often takes turns we do not see coming. Patchett ponders this truth in these wise essays that afford a fresh and intimate look into her mind and heart.
-
-
Heartfelt Essays, Beautifully Performed
- By Brent Holcomb on 11-23-21
By: Ann Patchett
-
I Feel Bad About My Neck
- And Other Thoughts on Being a Woman
- By: Nora Ephron
- Narrated by: Nora Ephron
- Length: 3 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
With her disarming, intimate, completely accessible voice, and dry sense of humor, Nora Ephron shares with us her ups and downs in I Feel Bad About My Neck, a candid, hilarious look at women who are getting older and dealing with the tribulations of maintenance, menopause, empty nests, and life itself.
-
-
Don't make me get out of the car...
- By Kestrel on 10-09-06
By: Nora Ephron
-
This Is the Story of a Happy Marriage
- By: Ann Patchett
- Narrated by: Ann Patchett
- Length: 11 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Blending literature and memoir, Ann Patchett, author of State of Wonder and Bel Canto examines her deepest commitments: to writing, family, friends, dogs, books, and her husband in This Is the Story of a Happy Marriage. Together, these essays, previously published in The Atlantic, Harper, Vogue, and The Washington Post, form a resonant portrait of a life lived with loyalty and with love.
-
-
Entertaining, engrossing, and elucidative essays
- By Bonny on 01-07-14
By: Ann Patchett
-
In Love
- A Memoir of Love and Loss
- By: Amy Bloom
- Narrated by: Amy Bloom
- Length: 4 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Amy Bloom began to notice changes in her husband, Brian: He retired early from a new job he loved; he withdrew from close friendships; he talked mostly about the past. Suddenly, it seemed there was a glass wall between them, and their long walks and talks stopped. Their world was altered forever when an MRI confirmed what they could no longer ignore: Brian had Alzheimer’s disease.
-
-
A helpful,healing memoir
- By Helen on 03-31-22
By: Amy Bloom
-
Kitchen Privileges
- Memoirs of a Bronx Girlhood
- By: Mary Higgins Clark
- Narrated by: Mary Higgins Clark
- Length: 5 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Even as a young girl, growing up in the Bronx, Mary Higgins Clark knew she wanted to be a writer. The gift of storytelling was a part of her Irish ancestry, so it followed naturally that she would later use her sharp eye, keen intelligence, and inquisitive nature to create stories.
-
-
I’ve read and re-read your books
- By Dolores Hylkema on 01-24-19
-
The Melody Lingers On
- By: Mary Higgins Clark
- Narrated by: Jan Maxwell
- Length: 7 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
As the sole assistant to a famous upscale interior designer, Lane Harmon, mother to five-year-old Katie, is accustomed to visiting opulent homes around the tristate area. A born optimist, Lane finds the glimpse into these gilded worlds fascinating and loves the reward of exceeding the expectations of their often-demanding owners. When she is called to assist in redecorating a modest townhouse in Bergen County, she knows the job is unusual.
-
-
Enjoyable topical and great narration!
- By Renee on 06-23-15
-
Fall from Grace
- By: Danielle Steel
- Narrated by: Luis Moreno
- Length: 9 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Sydney Wells' perfect life with her wealthy, devoted husband vanishes when he dies suddenly in an accident. Widowed at 49, she discovers he has failed to include her in his will. With Andrew's vicious daughters in control of his estate, and no home or money, Sydney finds a job in fashion, despite her own designer daughters' warnings. Naive, out of her element, and alone in a world of shady international deals and dishonest people, she is set up by her boss and finds herself faced with criminal prosecution.
-
-
Fall from Grace
- By Norma Gozner on 01-26-18
By: Danielle Steel
-
Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk
- A Novel
- By: Kathleen Rooney
- Narrated by: Xe Sands
- Length: 8 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It's the last day of 1984, and 85-year-old Lillian Boxfish is about to take a walk. As she traverses a grittier Manhattan, a city anxious after an attack by a still-at-large subway vigilante, she encounters bartenders, bodega clerks, chauffeurs, security guards, bohemians, criminals, children, parents, and parents to be in surprising moments of generosity and grace. While she strolls Lillian recalls a long and eventful life that included a brief reign as the highest paid advertising woman in America - a career cut short by marriage, motherhood, divorce, and a breakdown.
-
-
Lillian takes a stroll down memory lane!
- By Iris Pereyra on 01-29-17
By: Kathleen Rooney
-
I Still Dream About You
- A Novel
- By: Fannie Flagg
- Narrated by: Fannie Flagg
- Length: 10 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Meet Maggie Fortenberry, a still beautiful former Miss Alabama. To others, Maggie’s life seems practically perfect - she’s lovely, charming, and a successful real estate agent at Red Mountain Realty. Still, Maggie can’t help but wonder how she wound up in her present condition....
-
-
Flagging this audio
- By Meryl on 12-16-10
By: Fannie Flagg
-
Meet the Frugalwoods
- Achieving Financial Independence Through Simple Living
- By: Elizabeth Willard Thames
- Narrated by: Ann Marie Gideon
- Length: 5 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 2014, Elizabeth and Nate Thames were conventional 9-5 young urban professionals. But the couple had a dream to become modern-day homesteaders in rural Vermont. Determined to retire as early as possible in order to start living each day - as opposed to wishing time away working for the weekends - they enacted a plan to save an enormous amount of money: well over 70 percent of their joint take-home pay. Dubbing themselves the Frugalwoods, Elizabeth began documenting their unconventional frugality and the resulting wholesale lifestyle transformation on their eponymous blog.
-
-
Self-congratulatory, pollyanna garbage
- By Cecelia on 08-06-18
-
Half Empty
- Essays
- By: David Rakoff
- Narrated by: David Rakoff
- Length: 6 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The inimitably witty David Rakoff, New York Times best-selling author of Don’t Get Too Comfortable, defends the commonsensical notion that you should always assume the worst, because you’ll never be disappointed. In this deeply funny (and, no kidding, wise and poignant) audiobook, Rakoff examines the realities of our sunny, gosh everyone-can-be-a-star contemporary culture and finds that, pretty much as a universal rule, the best is not yet to come, adversity will triumph, justice will not be served, and your dreams won’t come true.
-
-
A Good Friend I Never Met
- By Rodney on 08-14-12
By: David Rakoff
-
29 Gifts
- How a Month of Giving Can Change Your Life
- By: Cami Walker
- Narrated by: Tavia Gilbert
- Length: 6 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
At age 35, Cami Walker was burdened by a battle with multiple sclerosis, a chronic neurological condition that made it difficult for her to walk, work, or enjoy her life. Seeking a remedy for her depression after being hospitalized, she received an uncommon prescription from an African medicine woman: give to others for 29 days.
-
-
Good book but way ... I mean way to long
- By Carlos on 10-15-15
By: Cami Walker
-
Lost and Found in Paris
- A Novel
- By: Lian Dolan
- Narrated by: Brittany Pressley
- Length: 10 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Joan Blakely had an unconventional childhood: the daughter of a globe-trotting supermodel and a world-famous artist. Her artist father died on 9/11, and Joan—an art historian by training—has spent more than a decade maintaining his legacy. Life in the art world is beginning to wear on her—and then one fateful afternoon her husband drops a bombshell: he’s fathered twins with another woman.
-
-
From the Mixed-Up Tales of Joan
- By Kay Woodbarry on 04-12-22
By: Lian Dolan
-
365 Thank Yous
- The Year a Simple Act of Daily Gratitude Changed My Life
- By: John Kralik
- Narrated by: John Kralik
- Length: 5 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
One recent December, at age 53, John Kralik found his life at a terrible, frightening low: his law firm was failing; he was struggling through a second divorce; he was living in a tiny apartment where he froze in the winter and baked in the summer. Then, during a walk in the hills on New Year’s Day, John was struck by the belief that his life might become at least tolerable if, instead of focusing on what he didn’t have, he could find some way to be grateful for what he had.
-
-
Loved this book!
- By Denise T. on 04-07-11
By: John Kralik
-
Brilliant
- By: Marne Davis Kellogg
- Narrated by: Kate Reading
- Length: 8 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
At Ballantyne and Company, a genteel but failing auction house in the heart of London, Kick Keswick has been an expert on painting, furniture, and objets d'art for over 30 years. When Ballantyne falls victim to a corporate takeover by robber baron and womanizer Owen Brace, Kick is the next target for Brace's idea of romantic merger and acquisition.
-
-
Not really a mystery
- By Ellen on 12-16-04
-
The Vanity Fair Diaries
- 1983-1992
- By: Tina Brown
- Narrated by: Tina Brown
- Length: 16 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Vanity Fair Diaries is the story of an Englishwoman barely out of her twenties who arrives in New York City with a dream. Summoned from London in hopes that she can save Condé Nast's troubled new flagship Vanity Fair, Tina Brown is immediately plunged into the maelstrom of the competitive New York media world and the backstabbing rivalries at the court of the planet's slickest, most glamour-focused magazine company. She survives the politics, the intrigue, and the attempts to derail her by a simple stratagem.
-
-
There is something about the Brits...
- By Sylvia on 12-11-17
By: Tina Brown
-
What Doesn't Kill You
- By: Virginia DeBerry, Donna Grant
- Narrated by: Virginia DeBerry, Donna Grant
- Length: 10 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
What Doesn't Kill You is the story of how Thomasina Hodges, a.k.a. Tee, loses her job and finds herself. Tee's evolution after her sudden and unexpected outplacement, is loosely based on the stages of grief - denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance, relinquishing, readjusting, and reinvesting. For Tee, losing her job is like a death, but with time, and some bumps, bruises and a new attitude, she comes out on the other side, having reassessed what's important in her life.
-
-
Excellent story
- By Doris Greene on 04-11-24
By: Virginia DeBerry, and others
Critic reviews
Related to this topic
-
My Mrs. Brown
- A Novel
- By: William Norwich
- Narrated by: Angela Brazil
- Length: 7 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When the grand dame of Ashville passes away, Mrs. Brown is called upon to inventory her estate and comes across a dress that changes everything. This isn't a Cinderella confection; it's a simple yet exquisitely tailored Oscar de la Renta sheath and jacket - a suit that, Mrs. Brown realizes with startling clarity, will say everything she has ever wished to convey. She must have it. And so Mrs. Brown begins her odyssey to purchase the dress.
-
-
Sweet story
- By Pam Hewitt on 05-01-20
By: William Norwich
-
What Doesn't Kill You
- By: Virginia DeBerry, Donna Grant
- Narrated by: Virginia DeBerry, Donna Grant
- Length: 10 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
What Doesn't Kill You is the story of how Thomasina Hodges, a.k.a. Tee, loses her job and finds herself. Tee's evolution after her sudden and unexpected outplacement, is loosely based on the stages of grief - denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance, relinquishing, readjusting, and reinvesting. For Tee, losing her job is like a death, but with time, and some bumps, bruises and a new attitude, she comes out on the other side, having reassessed what's important in her life.
-
-
Excellent story
- By Doris Greene on 04-11-24
By: Virginia DeBerry, and others
-
Fairy Tale Interrupted
- A Memoir of Life, Love, and Loss
- By: RoseMarie Terenzio
- Narrated by: RoseMarie Terenzio
- Length: 5 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
To everyone else, John F. Kennedy Jr. may have been American royalty, but to RoseMarie Terenzio, he was an entitled nuisance—and she wasn’t afraid to let him know it. RoseMarie was his personal assistant, his publicist, and one of his closest confidantes during the last five years of his life. In this, her first memoir, she bravely recounts her own fairy tale interrupted, describing the unlikely friendship between a blue-collar girl from the Bronx and John F. Kennedy Jr.
-
-
Mediocre read
- By Rachel on 05-28-12
-
Property
- Stories Between Two Novellas
- By: Lionel Shriver
- Narrated by: Lionel Shriver
- Length: 14 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A striking new collection of ten short stories and two novellas that explores the idea of property in every meaning of the word, from the acclaimed New York Times best-selling author of the National Book Award finalist So Much for That and the international best seller We Need to Talk About Kevin.
-
-
Painful and drawn out
- By JR on 06-27-18
By: Lionel Shriver
-
Meet the Frugalwoods
- Achieving Financial Independence Through Simple Living
- By: Elizabeth Willard Thames
- Narrated by: Ann Marie Gideon
- Length: 5 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 2014, Elizabeth and Nate Thames were conventional 9-5 young urban professionals. But the couple had a dream to become modern-day homesteaders in rural Vermont. Determined to retire as early as possible in order to start living each day - as opposed to wishing time away working for the weekends - they enacted a plan to save an enormous amount of money: well over 70 percent of their joint take-home pay. Dubbing themselves the Frugalwoods, Elizabeth began documenting their unconventional frugality and the resulting wholesale lifestyle transformation on their eponymous blog.
-
-
Self-congratulatory, pollyanna garbage
- By Cecelia on 08-06-18
-
This Is the Story of a Happy Marriage
- By: Ann Patchett
- Narrated by: Ann Patchett
- Length: 11 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Blending literature and memoir, Ann Patchett, author of State of Wonder and Bel Canto examines her deepest commitments: to writing, family, friends, dogs, books, and her husband in This Is the Story of a Happy Marriage. Together, these essays, previously published in The Atlantic, Harper, Vogue, and The Washington Post, form a resonant portrait of a life lived with loyalty and with love.
-
-
Entertaining, engrossing, and elucidative essays
- By Bonny on 01-07-14
By: Ann Patchett
-
My Mrs. Brown
- A Novel
- By: William Norwich
- Narrated by: Angela Brazil
- Length: 7 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When the grand dame of Ashville passes away, Mrs. Brown is called upon to inventory her estate and comes across a dress that changes everything. This isn't a Cinderella confection; it's a simple yet exquisitely tailored Oscar de la Renta sheath and jacket - a suit that, Mrs. Brown realizes with startling clarity, will say everything she has ever wished to convey. She must have it. And so Mrs. Brown begins her odyssey to purchase the dress.
-
-
Sweet story
- By Pam Hewitt on 05-01-20
By: William Norwich
-
What Doesn't Kill You
- By: Virginia DeBerry, Donna Grant
- Narrated by: Virginia DeBerry, Donna Grant
- Length: 10 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
What Doesn't Kill You is the story of how Thomasina Hodges, a.k.a. Tee, loses her job and finds herself. Tee's evolution after her sudden and unexpected outplacement, is loosely based on the stages of grief - denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance, relinquishing, readjusting, and reinvesting. For Tee, losing her job is like a death, but with time, and some bumps, bruises and a new attitude, she comes out on the other side, having reassessed what's important in her life.
-
-
Excellent story
- By Doris Greene on 04-11-24
By: Virginia DeBerry, and others
-
Fairy Tale Interrupted
- A Memoir of Life, Love, and Loss
- By: RoseMarie Terenzio
- Narrated by: RoseMarie Terenzio
- Length: 5 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
To everyone else, John F. Kennedy Jr. may have been American royalty, but to RoseMarie Terenzio, he was an entitled nuisance—and she wasn’t afraid to let him know it. RoseMarie was his personal assistant, his publicist, and one of his closest confidantes during the last five years of his life. In this, her first memoir, she bravely recounts her own fairy tale interrupted, describing the unlikely friendship between a blue-collar girl from the Bronx and John F. Kennedy Jr.
-
-
Mediocre read
- By Rachel on 05-28-12
-
Property
- Stories Between Two Novellas
- By: Lionel Shriver
- Narrated by: Lionel Shriver
- Length: 14 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A striking new collection of ten short stories and two novellas that explores the idea of property in every meaning of the word, from the acclaimed New York Times best-selling author of the National Book Award finalist So Much for That and the international best seller We Need to Talk About Kevin.
-
-
Painful and drawn out
- By JR on 06-27-18
By: Lionel Shriver
-
Meet the Frugalwoods
- Achieving Financial Independence Through Simple Living
- By: Elizabeth Willard Thames
- Narrated by: Ann Marie Gideon
- Length: 5 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 2014, Elizabeth and Nate Thames were conventional 9-5 young urban professionals. But the couple had a dream to become modern-day homesteaders in rural Vermont. Determined to retire as early as possible in order to start living each day - as opposed to wishing time away working for the weekends - they enacted a plan to save an enormous amount of money: well over 70 percent of their joint take-home pay. Dubbing themselves the Frugalwoods, Elizabeth began documenting their unconventional frugality and the resulting wholesale lifestyle transformation on their eponymous blog.
-
-
Self-congratulatory, pollyanna garbage
- By Cecelia on 08-06-18
-
This Is the Story of a Happy Marriage
- By: Ann Patchett
- Narrated by: Ann Patchett
- Length: 11 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Blending literature and memoir, Ann Patchett, author of State of Wonder and Bel Canto examines her deepest commitments: to writing, family, friends, dogs, books, and her husband in This Is the Story of a Happy Marriage. Together, these essays, previously published in The Atlantic, Harper, Vogue, and The Washington Post, form a resonant portrait of a life lived with loyalty and with love.
-
-
Entertaining, engrossing, and elucidative essays
- By Bonny on 01-07-14
By: Ann Patchett
-
My Korean Deli
- Risking It All for a Convenience Store
- By: Ben Ryder Howe
- Narrated by: Bronson Pinchot
- Length: 8 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This sweet and funny tale of a preppy editor buying a Brooklyn deli with his Korean in-laws is about family, culture clash, and the quest for authentic experiences. It starts with a gift. When Ben Ryder Howe’s wife, the daughter of Korean immigrants, decides to repay her parents’ self-sacrifice by buying them a store, Howe, an editor at the rarefied Paris Review, agrees to go along.
-
-
Absolutely delightful!
- By Grace O'Malley on 03-19-11
By: Ben Ryder Howe
-
Bitter Is the New Black
- Confessions of a Condescending, Egomaniacal, Self-Centered Smartass, Or, Why You Should Never Carry A Prada Bag to the Unemployment Office
- By: Jen Lancaster
- Narrated by: Jamie Heinlein
- Length: 10 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Jen Lancaster was living the sweet life-until real life kicked her to the curb. She had the perfect man, the perfect job-hell, she had the perfect life - and there was no reason to think it wouldn't last. Or maybe there was, but Jen Lancaster was too busy being manicured, pedicured, highlighted, and generally adored to notice.
-
-
Intolerable
- By Betty on 09-12-09
By: Jen Lancaster
-
The Unspeakable
- And Other Subjects of Discussion
- By: Meghan Daum
- Narrated by: Meghan Daum
- Length: 6 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It's a report tempered by hard times. In "Matricide", Daum unflinchingly describes a parent's death and the uncomfortable emotions it provokes; and in "Diary of a Coma" she relates her own journey to the twilight of the mind. But Daum also operates in a comic register. With perfect precision, she reveals the absurdities of the marriage-industrial complex, of the New Age dating market, and of the peculiar habits of the young and digital.
-
-
Complaining about her dead mom.
- By Erik Hermansen on 11-23-14
By: Meghan Daum
-
I Regret Nothing
- A Memoir
- By: Jen Lancaster
- Narrated by: Jen Lancaster
- Length: 9 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
New York Times best-selling author Jen Lancaster has lived a life based on re-invention and self-improvement. From Bitter Is the New Black to The Tao of Martha, she’s managed to document her (and her generation’s) attempts to shape up, grow up, and have it all - sometimes with disastrous results...Mistakes are one thing; regrets are another. After a girls’ weekend in Savannah makes her realize that she is - yikes! - middle-aged (binge watching is so the new binge drinking), Jen decides to make a bucket list and seize the day.
-
-
The Smug Is Strong With This One
- By T. Filowitz on 05-24-15
By: Jen Lancaster
-
The Price of Illusion
- A Memoir
- By: Joan Juliet Buck
- Narrated by: Joan Juliet Buck
- Length: 15 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From Joan Juliet Buck, former editor-in-chief of Paris Vogue, comes a dazzling memoir: a fabulous account of four decades spent in the creative heart of London, New York, Los Angeles, and Paris, chronicling Buck's quest to discover the difference between glitter and gold, illusion and reality, and what looks like happiness from the thing itself.
-
-
Narcissistic name dropper
- By Marlette on 12-03-19
By: Joan Juliet Buck
-
Mother Daughter Me
- A Memoir
- By: Katie Hafner
- Narrated by: Katie Hafner
- Length: 9 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The complex, deeply binding relationship between mothers and daughters is brought vividly to life in Katie Hafner's remarkable memoir, an exploration of the year she and her mother, Helen, spent working through, and triumphing over, a lifetime of unresolved emotions. Dreaming of a "year in Provence" with her mother, Katie urges Helen to move to San Francisco to live with her and Zoe, Katie's teenage daughter. Katie and Zoe had become a mother-daughter team, strong enough, Katie thought, to absorb the arrival of a 77-year-old woman set in her ways....
-
-
Listen and be swept away!
- By Barbara Quick on 06-02-22
By: Katie Hafner
-
Daring
- My Passages - A Memoir
- By: Gail Sheehy
- Narrated by: Bernadette Dunne
- Length: 14 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Candid, insightful, and powerful, Daring: My Passages is the story of the unconventional life of a writer who dared - to walk New York City streets with hookers and pimps to expose violent prostitution; to march with civil rights protesters in Northern Ireland as British paratroopers opened fire; to seek out Egypt's president Anwar Sadat when he was targeted for death after making peace with Israel.
-
-
Enjoyed unexpectedly
- By Corinne O'Rourke on 09-06-23
By: Gail Sheehy
-
Nickel and Dimed
- On (Not) Getting By in America
- By: Barbara Ehrenreich
- Narrated by: Cristine McMurdo-Wallis
- Length: 8 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This engrossing piece of undercover reportage has been a fixture on the New York Times best seller list since its publication. With nearly a million copies in print, Nickel and Dimed is a modern classic that deftly portrays the plight of America's working-class poor.
-
-
Good concept, but poor execution.
- By Marco Forcone on 08-24-04
-
Beer Money
- A Memoir of Privilege and Loss
- By: Frances Stroh
- Narrated by: Erin Bennett
- Length: 6 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Frances Stroh's earliest memories are ones of great privilege: shopping trips to London and New York, lunches served by black-tied waiters at the Regency Hotel, and a house filled with precious antiques, which she was forbidden to touch. Established in Detroit in 1850, by 1984 the Stroh Brewing Company had become the largest private beer fortune in America and a brand emblematic of the American dream itself; while Stroh was coming of age, the Stroh family fortune was estimated to be worth $700 million.
-
-
Beer boring
- By Richard E. Putt Jr. on 05-22-16
By: Frances Stroh
-
Laughing Without an Accent
- Adventures of an Iranian American, at Home and Abroad
- By: Firoozeh Dumas
- Narrated by: Firoozeh Dumas
- Length: 5 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the best-selling memoir Funny in Farsi, Firoozeh Dumas recounted her adventures growing up Iranian American in Southern California. Now she again mines her rich Persian heritage in Laughing Without an Accent, sharing stories both tender and humorous on being a citizen of the world, on her well-meaning family, and on amusing cultural conundrums, all told with insights into the universality of the human condition. (Hint: It may have to do with brushing and flossing daily.)
-
-
Sigh
- By Sara on 01-29-14
By: Firoozeh Dumas
-
Throw Out Fifty Things
- Clear the Clutter, Find Your Life
- By: Gail Blanke
- Narrated by: Gail Blanke
- Length: 3 hrs and 35 mins
- Abridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Throw Out Fifty Things is truly an eye-opener. According to Blanke, our lives are so filled with junk from the past—from dried up tubes of crazy glue to old grudges—that's it's a wonder we can get up in the morning, never mind go to work, care for our children and parents, and just put one foot in front of the other. Blanke wants to start a movement of people across America throwing out 50 things (magazines count as one!) that will help liberate us from the stuff—both physical and mental—that clutters our lives.
-
-
So useful, listened to it a 2nd time right away.
- By Zeus on 02-02-10
By: Gail Blanke
-
Andy Rooney
- 60 Years of Wisdom and Wit
- By: Andy Rooney
- Narrated by: J. Paul Guimont
- Length: 10 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Chairs. Neat people. Ugliness. War. Over six decades of intrepid reporting and elegant essays, Andy Rooney has proven a shrewd cultural analyst. Andy Rooney: 60 Years of Wisdom and Wit brings together the best of more than a half-century of work (including long-out-of-print pieces from his early years) in an unforgettable celebration of one of America’s funniest men. Like Mark Twain, Finley Peter Dunne (Mister Dooley) and Will Rogers, Andy Rooney is a classic chronicler of America, a writer for the ages.
-
-
A good style
- By Denise L. Holtz on 11-04-16
By: Andy Rooney
What listeners say about The Bag Lady Papers
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
- Bev K.
- 03-27-10
an entertaining quick read
I had heard the author in an NPR interview which peaked my interest to download this book. Having sufferred my own financial loss in the stock market downturn of '08, I could commiserate with the author. While I identified with her in some ways, my situation was not nearly as bad as hers, and I found her positive attitude both consoling and entertaining. I think the reader did a great job of expressing the tone of the story as it was written. It was a very enjoyable read for me.
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
- Marilyn
- 03-18-10
Unbelievably Trite
This book could have been good and should have been ... and it isn't! The author/protagonist is shallow, and is incapable of getting what significant profound moment that happened to herself and all the other Maddoff "victims." I have a hard time for those who invested with him and lost so "everything." They need to redefine and get a REAL grip on what is truly important.
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
- ILoveAmazon
- 10-25-24
Well Written and Descriptive
Alexandra is a great writer. She documents so well the emotions associated with losing her hard-earned money to Bernie Madoff. She has a creative mind and critical thinking skills developing new paths facing such betrayal. Very interesting read!
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
- Cricket
- 03-12-10
Brie with that Whine?
When you have 3 places to live and you are forced to sell 2 of them, you are not a "bag lady." Being afraid of losing your hair stylist because you can't imagine highlighting your own hair, or having to do your own nails does not elicit sympathy from most people I know. It was disgusting to hear the author go on about parties and dinners on the town she could now not attend, and the crystal and jewelry, etc. etc. Yes, losing her savings was unfair; a big shock and disappointment, I am sure, but that hardly equates to being a bag lady. She just got to the place where most of us have been living all along. When you have no job, no money, no prospects, no place to live (on the street), no food (as in empty pantry - not can't eat out at an expensive restaurant), clothes (designer or otherwise) or friends who help you every step of the way - that's a bag lady. Most of us have pinched pennies and worked hard all our lives without ever once having any of those luxuries this one keeps whining about losing.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
9 people found this helpful
-
Overall
- Pamela
- 03-05-10
Offensive Language
I did not make it past the first 15 minutes becasue the language was so offensive. She could have been so clever in using the English language to get across her anger, but she chose not to.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
7 people found this helpful
-
Overall
- Pam
- 05-27-10
ugh....
SNOOZE FEST!
I gave it three tries but decided it was not worth my time. I felt no emotional attachment to the agonizingly boring character. The narrator's voice was annoyingly smug and at times sounded computer generated.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!