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The Cheaper the Crook, the Gaudier the Patter
- Forgotten Hipster Lines, Tough Guy Talk, and Jive Gems
- Narrated by: Rod Tienken
- Length: 4 hrs and 27 mins
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Publisher's summary
Calling all Dapper Dans and Oomph Girls - take a ride through the American lexicon at its most inventive.
The Cheaper the Crook, the Gaudier the Patter: Forgotten Hipster Lines, Tough Guy Talk, and Jive Gems explores the rich vocabulary of gangsters, hipsters, jazz musicians, and military personnel of the 1930s and ’40s. Entries include definitions, etymology, and examples of usage. This delightful compendium celebrates the linguistic gems cut and polished during the Great Depression, World War I, and the postwar '50s - now forgotten or in danger of being forgotten.
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Overall
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400 Things Cops Know shows police work on the inside, from the viewpoint of the regular cop on the beat - a profession that can range from rewarding to bizarre to terrifying, all within the course of an eight-hour shift. Written by veteran police sergeant Adam Plantinga, 400 Things Cops Know brings the listener into life the way cops experience it - a life of danger, frustration, occasional triumph, and plenty of grindingly hard routine work.
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Between Good and Evil is Where I Walk
- By Cynthia on 05-26-16
By: Adam Plantinga
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Bop Apocalypse
- Jazz, Race, the Beats, and Drugs
- By: Martin Torgoff
- Narrated by: Roger Wayne
- Length: 13 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
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Martin Torgoff details the rise of early drug culture in America by weaving together the disparate elements that formed this new segment of the American fabric. Channeling his decades of writing experience, Torgoff connects the birth of jazz in New Orleans, the first drug laws, Louis Armstrong, the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, swing, Lester Young, Billie Holiday, the Savoy Ballroom, Charlie Parker, the birth of bebop, the rise of the Beat Generation, and the launch of heroin in Harlem.
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fascinating read
- By Ryan on 06-27-17
By: Martin Torgoff
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Detroit
- An American Autopsy
- By: Charlie LeDuff
- Narrated by: Eric Martin
- Length: 7 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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In the heart of America, a metropolis is quietly destroying itself. Detroit, once the richest city in the nation, is now its poorest. Once the vanguard of America’s machine age - mass production, automobiles, and blue-collar jobs - Detroit is now America’s capital for unemployment, illiteracy, foreclosure, and dropouts. With the steel-eyed reportage that has become his trademark and the righteous indignation that only a native son can possess, journalist Charlie LeDuff sets out to uncover what has brought low this once-vibrant city, his city.
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WOW
- By Avid Reader and Listener on 07-09-13
By: Charlie LeDuff
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Radical Chic and Mau-Mauing the Flak Catchers
- By: Tom Wolfe
- Narrated by: Harold N. Cropp
- Length: 4 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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In "Radical Chic", Wolfe focuses primarily on one symbolic event: a gathering of the politically correct at Leonard Bernstein’s duplex apartment on Park Avenue to meet spokesmen of the Black Panther Party. He re-creates the incongruous scene - and its astonishing repercussions - with high fidelity. In the companion essay, Wolfe travels west to San Francisco to survey another meeting-ground between militant minorities and the liberal white establishment. "Mau-Mauing the Flak Catchers" deals with the newly emerging art of confrontation, as practiced by San Francisco’s militant minorities.
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Outstanding
- By michael on 01-05-14
By: Tom Wolfe
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St. Marks Is Dead
- The Many Lives of America's Hippest Street
- By: Ada Calhoun
- Narrated by: Carla Mercer-Meyer
- Length: 10 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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St. Marks Place in New York City has spawned countless artistic and political movements. Here Frank O'Hara caroused, Emma Goldman plotted, and the Velvet Underground wailed. But every generation of miscreant denizens believes that their era, and no other, marked the street's apex.
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Wonderful history of a wonderful place.
- By Liza B. on 11-07-15
By: Ada Calhoun
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Canada
- By: Mike Myers
- Narrated by: Mike Myers
- Length: 5 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
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Comedy superstar Mike Myers writes from the (true patriot) heart about his 53-year relationship with his beloved Canada. Mike Myers is a world-renowned actor, director and writer and the man behind some of the most memorable comic characters of our time. But, as he says, "No description of me is truly complete without saying I'm a Canadian". He has often winked and nodded to Canada in his outrageously accomplished body of work, but now he turns the spotlight full-beam on his homeland.
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Thoughtful and perfect for any X-Pat from Canada
- By Hugh Burnham on 05-02-17
By: Mike Myers
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Street Poison
- The Biography of Iceberg Slim
- By: Justin Gifford
- Narrated by: J. D. Jackson
- Length: 10 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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From a career as a, yes, ruthless pimp in the '40s and '50s, Iceberg Slim refashioned himself as the first and still the greatest of the "street lit" masters, whose vivid books have made him an icon to such rappers as Ice-T, Jay-Z, and Snoop Dogg and a presiding spirit of "blaxploitation" culture.
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A must read for all Robert Beck fans.
- By JMKIII58 on 09-15-16
By: Justin Gifford
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Slaughterhouse-Five
- By: Kurt Vonnegut
- Narrated by: James Franco
- Length: 5 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
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Traumatized by the bombing of Dresden at the time he had been imprisoned, Pilgrim drifts through all events and history, sometimes deeply implicated, sometimes a witness. He is surrounded by Vonnegut's usual large cast of continuing characters (notably here the hack science fiction writer Kilgore Trout and the alien Tralfamadorians, who oversee his life and remind him constantly that there is no causation, no order, no motive to existence).
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Don't Quit Your Daytime Job, James
- By Keith on 11-20-15
By: Kurt Vonnegut
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A Flame of Pure Fire
- Jack Dempsey and the Roaring '20s
- By: Roger Kahn
- Narrated by: Kevin Yon
- Length: 17 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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Through most of the Roaring '20s, Jack Dempsey was the heavyweight champion of the world. With his fierce good looks and matchless dedication to the kill, he was a fighter perfectly suited to his time. In A Flame of Pure Fire, renowned sports writer Roger Kahn not only chronicles the thrilling, brutal bouts of the Manassa Mauler, but also illustrates how the tumultuous 1920s shaped Dempsey - and how the champ, in turn, left an indelible mark on sports and American history.
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Ambitious but poorly executed
- By Keith on 10-02-19
By: Roger Kahn
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A Mouse Divided
- How Ub Iwerks Became Forgotten, and Walt Disney Became Uncle Walt
- By: Jeff Ryan
- Narrated by: J. D. Jackson
- Length: 11 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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Almost everything you know about Mickey Mouse is wrong: He wasn’t Disney’s first star; Steamboat Willie wasn’t his first movie; Mickey wasn’t a nice guy - and Walt Disney didn’t invent him. In 1928, two very different best friends invented Mickey Mouse. And the success tore them apart. Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks’ friendship is a story of betrayal, love, war, money, power, tragedy, intrigue, humor, despair, and hope. You’ll love them both - when you don’t want to drop anvils on their heads.
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Wasted money and wasted time
- By E. Johnson on 12-27-18
By: Jeff Ryan
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The Murder of Sonny Liston
- Las Vegas, Heroin, and Heavyweights
- By: Shaun Assael
- Narrated by: R.C. Bray
- Length: 6 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
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On January 5, 1971, Sonny Liston was found dead in his home - of an apparent heroin overdose. But no one close to Liston believed that his death was accidental. Digging deep into a life that Liston tried hard to hide, Shaun Assael treats the boxer's death as a cold case. The result is a riveting whodunit that evokes a glorious and grimy era of Las Vegas.
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Great read
- By Diane Dodge on 09-14-19
By: Shaun Assael