The Bloviator
Sex, Drugs, Fraud, Suicide, Murder, Scandal, Adultery, Quackery, Corruption, Superstition and President Warren G. Harding.
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Narrated by:
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Jim Cuddy
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By:
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Jim Yoakum
About this listen
1923: Faced with impending personal and political scandals (corrupt cabinet members, drinking, gambling, failing health made worse by a quack physician, blackmailers attempting to exploit his numerous affairs and bastard children, murders, and suicides), President Warren G. Harding embarks on a cross-country train trip, from Washington D.C. to Alaska, in an effort to rehabilitate his chances for re-election - something he is unsure he even wants.
But the GOP have lost faith in Warren. However, they have taken a liking to the idea of running the first-ever female president: Florence, his smart, and ambitious wife. After all, it had been Florence who had spearheaded the innovations that not only got Warren elected in 1920, but which are still used today: the creation of solicitation-telephone calls, celebrity endorsements, photo-ops, news reels, radio ads, direct marketing...and it was Florence who is both the brains of the outfit, and the star of this show. Harding is simply the handsome, good-natured, overly-trusting, face.
Based on the true, last (and unbelievably bizarre) six months in the life of America's 29th President, The Bloviator tells the story of sex, drugs, scandals, blackmail, murder, suicides - and the presidency. The Bloviator is a "fiction fueled by fact" in that while some elements are constructions, they are well with-in the plausible, and probable, range of the facts.
The Bloviator is an epic; a massive and sprawling work; history as absurdity, as if it were being filtered through a cracked prism - but the prism is not cracked. Most of the story told here is unbelievably, incredibly, based on true events.
©2012 Jim Yoakum (P)2019 Jim YoakumListeners also enjoyed...
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Story
For all the monumental documentation that Watergate generated - uncountable volumes of committee records, court transcripts, and memoirs - it falls at last to a novelist to perform the work of inference (and invention) that allows us to solve some of the scandal’s greatest mysteries - who did erase those eighteen-and-a-half minutes of tape? - and to see this gaudy American catastrophe in its human entirety. In Watergate, Thomas Mallon conveys the drama and high comedy of the Nixon presidency through the urgent perspectives of seven characters we only thought we knew.
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A great listen
- By Tad Davis on 03-29-12
By: Thomas Mallon
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Player Piano
- By: Kurt Vonnegut
- Narrated by: Christian Rummel
- Length: 11 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
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Kurt Vonnegut's first novel spins the chilling tale of engineer Paul Proteus, who must find a way to live in a world dominated by a supercomputer and run completely by machines. Paul's rebellion is vintage Vonnegut – wildly funny, deadly serious, and terrifyingly close to reality.
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A Genuine 5-Stars
- By R.A. on 06-07-19
By: Kurt Vonnegut
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Bel Ami
- By: Guy de Maupassant
- Narrated by: John McDonough
- Length: 14 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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Guy de Maupassant is revered for his naturalistic fiction, which brilliantly captures flesh-and-blood characters as it evokes the most telling details of everyday life. Considered one of the finest French novels ever written, Bel Ami follows journalist Georges Duroy and his increasing stature among the Paris elite. With an immense thirst for power, Georges is not above an almost gleeful use of wealthy mistresses to achieve his ends.
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Bel Ami or how to socially climb in 1885 Paris
- By Neil Chisholm on 12-03-13
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What It Takes
- The Way to the White House
- By: Richard Ben Cramer
- Narrated by: Keith Sellon-Wright
- Length: 54 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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An American Iliad in the guise of contemporary political reportage, What It Takes penetrates the mystery at the heart of all presidential campaigns: How do presumably ordinary people acquire that mixture of ambition, stamina, and pure shamelessness that makes a true candidate? As he recounts the frenzied course of the 1988 presidential race, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Richard Ben Cramer comes up with the answers, in a book that is vast, exhaustively researched, exhilarating, and sometimes appalling in its revelations.
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Great political book
- By Hebern on 09-11-20
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Belle Cora
- A Novel
- By: Phillip Margulies
- Narrated by: Graham Rowat, Elizabeth Wiley
- Length: 25 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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In the home where Arabella Godwin was raised it is forbidden to speak her name, and her picture is turned to the wall. But in the turbulent America of the 1850s, everyone knows her as "Belle Cora", madam of San Francisco's finest bordello. Judges and senators do her bidding; a vicious newspaper editor plots her downfall; a preacher looks at her from across his pulpit and tries to forget that once she was his wife. Merchant's daughter, farm girl, prostitute, mother - the only thing that never changes is her tireless pursuit of the one man who can see her for who she really is.
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excellent
- By Patricia on 05-15-20
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Finale
- A Novel of the Reagan Years
- By: Thomas Mallon
- Narrated by: Christopher Lane
- Length: 17 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
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From the author of the acclaimed novel Watergate comes a galvanizing new novel about the tumultuous administration of the most consequential and enigmatic president of modern times - Ronald Reagan. Finale takes listeners to the political gridiron of Washington in 1986, the wealthiest enclaves of Southern California, and the volcanic landscape of Iceland, where the president engages in two almost apocalyptic days of negotiation with Mikhail Gorbachev.
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Gore Vidal for the 21st Century
- By philip on 10-31-15
By: Thomas Mallon
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Love of Life, and Other Stories
- By: Jack London
- Narrated by: Robertson Dean
- Length: 5 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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John Griffith "Jack" London was an American author, journalist, and social activist. He was a pioneer in the then-burgeoning world of commercial magazine fiction and was one of the first fiction writers to obtain worldwide celebrity and a large fortune from his fiction alone. This collection includes "Love of Life", "A Day's Lodging", "The White Man's Way", "The Story of Keesh", "The Unexpected", "Brown Wolf", "The Sun-Dog Trail", and "Negore, the Coward".
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Review of Love of Life and Other Stories
- By Pre Paid Gift Card on 05-25-16
By: Jack London
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Babbitt
- By: Sinclair Lewis
- Narrated by: David Colacci
- Length: 13 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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In this sardonic portrait of the up-and-coming middle class during the prosperous 1920s, Sinclair Lewis perfectly captures the sound, the feel, and the attitudes of the generation that created the cult of consumerism. With a sharp eye for detail and keen powers of observation, Lewis tracks successful realtor George Babbitt's daily struggles to rise to the top of his profession while maintaining his reputation as an upstanding family man.
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Makes You Think
- By E. Pearson on 02-21-13
By: Sinclair Lewis
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Appointment in Samarra
- Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition
- By: John O'Hara, Charles McGrath - introduction
- Narrated by: Christian Camargo
- Length: 6 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
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In December 1930, just before Christmas, the Gibbsville, Pennsylvania, social circuit is electrified with parties and dances. At the center of the social elite stand Julian and Caroline English. But in one rash moment born inside a highball glass, Julian breaks with polite society and begins a rapid descent toward self-destruction.
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Quite good, but not a classic
- By Michael on 04-25-15
By: John O'Hara, and others
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My Autobiography
- By: Charles Chaplin, David Robinson - introduction
- Narrated by: Steve John Shepherd
- Length: 19 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
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Take an unforgettable journey with the man George Bernard Shaw called "the only genius to come out of the movie industry" as he moves from his impoverished South London childhood to the heights of Hollywood wealth and fame; from the McCarthy-era investigations to his founding of United Artists to his "reverse migration" back to Europe.
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Finally Chaplin’s auto is available!
- By Ryan Baumbach on 04-28-22
By: Charles Chaplin, and others
What listeners say about The Bloviator
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Rick Smith
- 03-06-21
Too trashy
Greatly disappointed as this was too trashy and full of half truths. Don’t waist your money
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1 person found this helpful
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- DB
- 03-28-21
Pure trash
This book is nothing but gossip and trash. Shame on audible for making this the only book available on Harding’s presidency.
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2 people found this helpful
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- L. Voss
- 07-08-19
Garbage, not worth your time
A semi-fictionalized account of the life of a historical figure is something that can be done well, adding interest and filling gaps in narrative. This is not that. This is poorly written, poorly structured, with sophomoric humor that falls flat. It's like something a high school boy would write, with a high school boy's giggling discomfort with sexuality and lack of understanding of women. There is no coherent narrative, there are no examinations of motive or feelings, there is no broader historical context provided except in tedious "flashback" sequences wedged at random into the book. Truly, do not waste your money.
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5 people found this helpful