The Beginning
The Cradle of the Raptor, Book One
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Narrated by:
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Alan Taylor
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By:
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T.L. Hershey
About this listen
Life could be beautiful and idyllic on the little Raptor farm nestled among the shady green forests and sunny meadows of the Big Timber Indian Reservation. But strange and powerful forces were tearing the tiny mission church apart at the seams. Tough and ruggedly handsome Carl Raptor with his coldly competent wife, Charlotte, were raising their small sons in this remote place where the passions and stresses were beyond Carl’s ability to cope.
For the Raptor boys, the exhilarating freedom of exploring thousands of acres of wild, game-rich reservation land and thundering their horses down gravel and dirt logging roads would instantly evaporate when their father lost all control and used them to work off his white hot fits of rage. The two oldest sons seemed able to cope, but Michael, the third son, lived in near-constant fear.
The beatings and torments increased as Carl’s stress levels rose, and while the welts and bruises on their small bodies healed fairly quickly, the emotional and psychological scarring of Michael’s soul would take many years to heal. This is his story.
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Today, nearly 40 years after his death, Nobel Prize winner John Steinbeck remains one of America's greatest writers and cultural figures. We have begun publishing his many works for the first time as Penguin Classics. This season we continue with the seven spectacular and influential books East of Eden, Cannery Row, In Dubious Battle, The Long Valley, The Moon Is Down, The Pastures of Heaven, and Tortilla Flat.
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Golden, mythical America
- By Dan Harlow on 07-07-13
By: John Steinbeck
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Close Range
- Wyoming Stories (Selected Unabridged Stories)
- By: Annie Proulx
- Narrated by: Frances Fisher, Bruce Greenwood, Campbell Scott
- Length: 5 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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Annie Proulx's masterful language and fierce love of Wyoming are evident in this collection of stories about loneliness, quick violence, and wrong kinds of love. In "The Mud Below", a rodeo rider's obsession marks the deepening fissures between his family life and self-imposed isolation. In "The Half-Skinned Steer", an elderly fool drives west to the ranch he grew up on for his brother's funeral, and dies a mile from home.
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A Wonderfully Ironic and Surprising Read
- By Susan L. Stewart on 04-21-12
By: Annie Proulx
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Deep Creek
- Finding Hope in the High Country
- By: Pam Houston
- Narrated by: Pam Houston
- Length: 10 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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On her 120-acre homestead high in the Colorado Rockies, beloved writer Pam Houston learns what it means to care for a piece of land and the creatures on it. Elk calves and bluebirds mark the changing seasons, winter temperatures drop to 35 below, and lightning sparks a 110,000-acre wildfire, threatening her century-old barn and all its inhabitants. Through her travels from the Gulf of Mexico to Alaska, she explores what ties her to the Earth, the ranch most of all.
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The most beautiful book I’ve ever read
- By KFratt on 04-26-19
By: Pam Houston
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Wish You Were Here
- By: Sneaky Pie Brown, Rita Mae Brown
- Narrated by: Kate Forbes
- Length: 8 hrs
- Unabridged
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Curiosity just might be the death of Mrs. Murphy - and her human companion, Mary Minor "Harry" Haristeen. Small towns are like families: Everyone lives very close together. . .and everyone keeps secrets. Crozet, Virginia, is a typical small town - until its secrets explode into murder. Crozet's thirty-something post-mistress, Mary Minor "Harry" Haristeen, has a tiger cat (Mrs. Murphy) and a Welsh Corgi (Tucker), a pending divorce, and a bad habit of reading postcards not addressed to her.
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Language of the Cats
- By CHo Meir on 01-29-13
By: Sneaky Pie Brown, and others
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That Old Ace in the Hole
- By: Annie Proulx
- Narrated by: Tom Stechschulte
- Length: 14 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award winner Annie Proulx's That Old Ace in the Hole is told through the eyes of Bob Dollar, a young Denver man trying to make good in a bad world. Dollar is out of college but aimless, when he takes a job with Global Pork Rind - his task to locate big spreads of land in the Texas and Oklahoma panhandles that can be purchased by the corporation and converted to hog farms.
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Doesn't work as a novel
- By Sarah C on 05-30-12
By: Annie Proulx
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Horse People
- Scenes from the Riding Life
- By: Michael Korda
- Narrated by: Julian Elfer
- Length: 11 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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Best-selling author Michael Korda's Horse People is the story - sometimes hilariously funny, sometimes sad and moving, always shrewdly observed - of a lifetime love affair with horses, and of the bonds that have linked humans with horses for more than 10,000 years. It is filled with intimate portraits of the kind of people, rich or poor, Eastern or Western, famous or humble, whose lives continue to revolve around the horse. Korda is a terrific storyteller, and his book is intensely personal and seductive, a joy for everyone who loves horses.
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good yarn for nag lovers
- By bj bell on 03-27-21
By: Michael Korda
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The Hamlet
- By: William Faulkner
- Narrated by: Joe Barrett
- Length: 14 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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The Hamlet, the first novel of Faulkner's Snopes trilogy, is both an ironic take on classical tragedy and a mordant commentary on the grand pretensions of the antebellum South and the depths of its decay in the aftermath of war and Reconstruction. It tells of the advent and the rise of the Snopes family in Frenchman's Bend, a small town built on the ruins of a once-stately plantation.
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The Long, Hot Summer
- By W Perry Hall on 07-30-17
By: William Faulkner
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Trials of the Earth
- The True Story of a Pioneer Woman
- By: Mary Mann Hamilton
- Narrated by: Barbara Benjamin Creel
- Length: 10 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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Near the end of her life, Mary Mann Hamilton (1866-c.1936) was encouraged to record her experiences as a female pioneer. The result is the only known firsthand account of a remarkable woman thrust into the center of taming the American South - surviving floods, tornadoes, and fires; facing bears, panthers, and snakes; managing a boardinghouse in Arkansas that was home to an eccentric group of settlers; and running a logging camp in Mississippi that blazed a trail for development in the Mississippi Delta.
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Long and slow.
- By Ren on 10-31-17
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Amish Values for Your Family
- What We Can Learn from the Simple Life
- By: Suzanne Woods Fisher
- Narrated by: Mimi Black
- Length: 4 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
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For listeners who long for strong families that know how to truly enjoy life together, there is much to learn from the Amish. Values like community, forgiveness, simple living, obedience, and more can be your family legacy - without selling your car, changing your wardrobe, or moving out to farm country. In Amish Values for Your Family, bestselling author Suzanne Woods Fisher shows how you can adopt the wisdom of the Amish when it comes to family matters. In this inspiring and practical audio book listeners will find charming true stories interlaced with solid, biblical advice....
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Completely awesome!
- By Seth W. Hudson on 03-19-15
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How I Got This Way
- By: Patrick McManus
- Narrated by: Norman Dietz
- Length: 7 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
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Grab your fishing net and hold onto your funny-bone; you're in for a hilarious romp through the woods with best-selling funnyman Patrick McManus. How I Got This Way is a rib-tickling collection of stories about the outdoors guaranteed to leave you chuckling. Join McManus and his pals on a venture into the Idaho wilderness that includes taking a hike with - ahem - the president of the United States.
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Mark Twain meets Bertie Wooster
- By Snoodely on 07-22-12
By: Patrick McManus
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Travels with Charley in Search of America
- By: John Steinbeck
- Narrated by: Gary Sinise
- Length: 7 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
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In September 1960, John Steinbeck and his poodle, Charley, embarked on a journey across America, from small towns to growing cities to glorious wilderness oases. Travels with Charley is animated by Steinbeck’s attention to the specific details of the natural world and his sense of how the lives of people are intimately connected to the rhythms of nature—to weather, geography, the cycles of the seasons. His keen ear for the transactions among people is evident, too, as he records the interests and obsessions that preoccupy the Americans he encounters along the way.
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Gary Sinise is fantastic!
- By C. Wilson on 01-11-17
By: John Steinbeck
What listeners say about The Beginning
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Jason Yoder
- 10-04-20
Well written story
A constantly engaging and courageous story, some parts must have been difficult to write and put down into words. Well worth it.
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- Amazon Customer
- 10-14-24
Hard to put down
Heart rending honesty about a reality that is all too common. These stories need to be told. I recommend everyone read this.
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- Shawna
- 11-24-20
Intense
I was given this free review copy audiobook at my request and have voluntarily left this review.
I listened to this in one day. It was a book that I could not pause. I was frustrated with the mother to allow so much to happen to her children. The only time she stood up for anyone was when she stood up for herself....I disliked this aspect of the story. However, this was well written and the narrator was spot-on. As soon as I finished this, I went looking for book number 2. Unfortunately, it is not out yet. This is an intense book about familial abuse and centers a lot on one character, Michael.
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- Matthew Graber
- 12-26-20
A Life Of Adventure Carefully Woven Among Pain
This story was a difficult listen.... yet one that was hard to pause as well. It follows the life of Michael Raptor and the abuse he suffered as a child. Among the adventures he shared with his brothers, he also endured a lot of pain and abuse, some physical, some emotional, some verbal. Redemption and healing eventually finds Michael, but not without leaving it's scars on his life.
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- Alex Miller
- 01-04-21
Fantastic Coming-of-Age Story
Wow, so much to think on here. The Cradle of the Raptor simultaneously touches on the joys of childhood, the brutality of a father with deep-seated anger issues, the mental anguish that abuse brings, and life as a Mennonite boy, all weaved through the perspective of the Raptor family.
We get a front-row seat to the life of Michael Raptor, and follow his family's story from his earliest memories through the age of 13. This book made me happy, angry, sad, and reflective all at once. It's truly a coming-of-age tale, one that will pull at your heart strings and show you a picture of the reality of impoverished farm life in the mid-1900s.
The crux of the book revolves around Carl Raptor, a physically abusive father who takes his anger out on his 3 sons. Although I can't relate to having an abusive father, it gave me insight into what a toll that can take on the mind of a young boy. This is an insightful, deeply-moving book, and not for the faint of heart. I'm looking forward to the next book already.
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