The Folded Leaf
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Narrated by:
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Mark Boyett
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By:
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William Maxwell
About this listen
Here is a classic novel from one of our most honored writers - the author of such acclaimed works as So Long, See You Tomorrow and All the Days and Nights. The Folded Leaf is the serenely observed yet deeply moving story of two boys finding one another in the Midwest of the 1920s, when childhood lasted longer than it does today and even adults were more innocent of what life could bring.
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When Frankie’s mother died and her father left her and her siblings at an orphanage in Chicago, it was supposed to be only temporary - just long enough for him to get back on his feet and be able to provide for them once again. That’s why Frankie's not prepared for the day that he arrives for his weekend visit with a new woman on his arm and out-of-state train tickets in his pocket. Now, Frankie and her sister, Toni, are abandoned alongside so many other orphans - two young, unwanted women doing everything they can to survive.
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Boring, boring, boring
- By Marie J. on 08-20-21
By: Laura Ruby
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Pnin
- By: Vladimir Nabokov
- Narrated by: Stefan Rudnicki
- Length: 5 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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One of the best-loved of Nabokov's novels, Pnin features his funniest and most heart-rending character. Professor Timofey Pnin is a haplessly disoriented Russian emigre precariously employed on an American college campus in the 1950s. Pnin struggles to maintain his dignity through a series of comic and sad misunderstandings, all the while falling victim both to subtle academic conspiracies and to the manipulations of a deliberately unreliable narrator.
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Why not leave their private sorrows to people?
- By Darwin8u on 01-13-20
By: Vladimir Nabokov
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Joy in the Morning
- A Novel
- By: Betty Smith
- Narrated by: Maggi-Meg Reed
- Length: 10 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
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In 1927, in Brooklyn, New York, Carl Brown and Annie McGairy meet and fall in love. Though only 18, Annie travels alone halfway across the country to the Midwestern university where Carl is studying law - and there they marry. But Carl and Annie’s first year together is much more difficult than they anticipated as they find themselves in a faraway place with little money and few friends. With hardship and poverty weighing heavily upon them, they come to realize that their greatest sources of strength, loyalty, and love will help them make it through.
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Another Wonderful Betty Smith Audio Book
- By 20eagle16 on 01-25-21
By: Betty Smith
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Main Street (Annotated): 100th Anniversary Edition
- By: Sinclair Lewis
- Narrated by: Kitty Hendrix
- Length: 19 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
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A biting satire that countered the American myth of wholesome small-town life with a depiction of narrow-minded provincialism, it was to some degree based on Lewis's own experience of growing on Sauk Centre, Minnesota. Set in mid-1910s, it depicts the struggles of Carol Kennicott, a city girl, as she tries to adapt to small town life, having left her librarian job and St. Paul, Minnesota to marry Dr. Will Kennicott of Gopher Prairie. Dismayed by the town’s drabness and the conforming, petty inhabitants, Carol optimistically sets out to improve the town.
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What Are Your Assumptions About Yourself & Others
- By Benny Fife on 02-06-20
By: Sinclair Lewis
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One of Ours
- By: Willa Cather
- Narrated by: Louis B. Jack
- Length: 14 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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This is One of Ours, the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Willa Cather, America’s greatest writer of the prairie heartland. It is set in rural Nebraska in the early 20th century prior to the first World War that enveloped Europe and eventually the United States. The story focuses on the young Claude Wheeler, a well-to-do farmer’s son who secretly longs for something to take him away from the hum-drum agrarian life he has inherited. As he prepares to take over his family’s farm business, war intrudes.
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Opened my heart
- By georgette bartell on 06-28-19
By: Willa Cather
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One True Thing
- By: Anna Quindlen
- Narrated by: Christina Moore
- Length: 9 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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A young woman sits in jail, accused of the mercy killing of her dying mother. She didn't do it, but she thinks she knows who did. In the last months of her life, Ellen Gulden's mother revealed startling secrets that challenged everything Ellen believed about her family. Now, in jail, Ellen believes those secrets will tell her who had the courage to end her mother's suffering.
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Quindlen's writing skills shine in One True Thing.
- By Bonny on 08-26-13
By: Anna Quindlen
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Pale Horse, Pale Rider
- Three Short Novels
- By: Katherine Anne Porter
- Narrated by: Chelsea Stephens
- Length: 6 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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The classic 1939 collection of three novellas by the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award-winning author and journalist, including the famous title story set during the influenza epidemic of 1918.
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Some of the most brilliant prose ever written
- By Anonymous User on 03-21-23
What listeners say about The Folded Leaf
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- David
- 03-17-15
Midwestern Misfits
I chose this book because Daniel Handler (Lemony Snicket) recommended it in an interview. It provides a sentimental view of Midwestern America (mostly Chicago and Champaign-Urbana) in the 1920s, viewed from the 1940s. The first half reminded me of early Scott Fitzgerald stories (Bernice Bobs her Hair) and Sinclair Lewis (Babbitt). Teenage boys in high school deal with their families and classmates and pretend to be more grown-up and sophisticated than they are. Two boys, Limey and Spud, opposites in every way, become super-close friends. A girl comes between them, sort of.
But the second half becomes melodramatic and banal. Limey and Spud follow different routes in college, testing their friendship. The girl remains fond of both. But Limey becomes weak and simpering, while Spud grows increasingly angry and a bit dense.
Are the young men lovers? Hard to say, as the novel reflects an age when that love really did not dare not speak its name. But it begins with a bunch of naked teenage boys playing water polo in the school pool, college boys share beds snuggling warmly and there is even a chaste lip-to-lip guy kiss. Secondary characters include a bachelor professor living with his party-loving mother and an affected antique dealer who runs a men's rooming house with his little dog. But despite all that, there is never a hint that any characters--male or female--actually have sex.
The book is fun as a historic artifact, and the first half is kind of charming. The narration was good, with nice choices for the voices of the various characters.
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4 people found this helpful
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- P. Giorgio
- 12-09-12
I don't get it!
I was looking for an exemplary piece of fiction from "back then" when plots and character arcs were king. I had heard that Maxwell was an editor of great writers, so I felt "safe" that this would be a terrific read. But I found it boring. There is some suggestion of homosexual love between two friends, and that is handled beautifully in the early sections. Innocent friendship gone intimate and all that. By the end, it was messy and blatant. I am not sure about the importance of the so-called romance, but I am sure that the contrasts between the boys, their upbringing, their current situations were very important. A motherless boy is always good for great character and faulty conceptions of the world.
Maybe because of the time, the sexual relationship could not be more deftly illustrated; I get that. But it was thrown on thick at the end as if the writer wanted to make sure the reader "got it." The sentence about "not liking effeminate men" was the only thing definitely "effeminate" about that particular character.
Am I missing nuances here? I could go back and re-think some scenes and find ways to add homosexual behavior to some, but why? I think that as a book about growing boys, motherless children, poverty and academia, about Chicago and about adolescence, it is just dandy.
I would not recommend this for anyone else to read or listen to -- because it was BORING. The language was lovely, but not stunning. The sentences and the word choices were rather plain.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Carly
- 04-17-15
Ahead of its time
Beautifully written and a bit of a scandalous tale for its time but I found my 21st century values wanted more.
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- Michelle
- 01-24-15
Superb narrator
The narrator was wonderful. He got into the characters with different voices and made the whole thing just something you could get lost in. excellent
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- J. D. Wilson
- 09-06-17
Great book. Ending of Audio differs from Print
The writing is really superb--crisp and economical, but lovely at the same time. A few others wrote here that the writing includes digressions not related to the plot. My sense is that the book accurately captures the friendship between the two boys *because* young men don't communicative about their feelings in an open straight-forward way. Maxwell very artfully creates metaphors that mirror or illuminate what's happening.
I started the audio book and then switched to the ebook version. The endings aren't the same. Maxwell wraps up the plot the same way, but the material in the last chapter of the audio book is spread out and augmented into two chapters in the print edition. If you liked the audio book, I'd suggest trying to find that last chapter in print. It buttons up the book well.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Anonymous User
- 03-17-20
Charming classic
A very charming story about two very different boys who form a close friendship that then leads in to a one sided romance
For the modern reader I have to give a sensitivity warning (with the fear of sounding like a total SJW) this book might come off as a little "queer bait-y" to the modern reader. To a modern person it would be quite obvious that one of the boys is gay and is in love with the other boy. Whether that was intentional or not is hard to say, but to me it does read like it is. This is never made explicit but there are a lot of passages that would be hard to interpret otherwise. This might be frustrating at times but one has to keep in mind that this book was written in the 1940's.
If this does not bother you it is a very charming story, loved the characters and Maxwell's language is beautiful. I have also rarely read a book about teenagers that so well captures the way they think and act. His portrait of the teenage mind is so perfect and captivating and to me as an adult it really takes me back. It does this completely without being either sentimental not judgemental. It treats teenagers with respect with the full knowledge that they are at times (if you will excuse my french) overly melodramatic dumb-asses fuelled by hormones and with very little common sense.
The narrator does a great job at really showing off the beauty of the language and his voices for the different characters are fitting.
I would recommend this book, just keep in mind that it is a little bit dated.
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- Douglas
- 04-18-16
Relationally uneven
I thought the book was about the two main characters, but there were many abounding sequences where there were characters and dialogues between characters that had absolutely nothing to do with the main characters that didn't really seem to add to the story. They just seem to be Meanderings in aimless directions. I didn't like the narrator's voice of the two main characters, I thought the two main characters were rather selfish, not looking out for one another, not a good friendship not a good fit. The voice of the narrator seemed to add to this thought and feeling of mine.
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