
The Librarianist
A Novel
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Narrated by:
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Jim Meskimen
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By:
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Patrick deWitt
About this listen
NATIONAL BESTSELLER
From bestselling and award-winning author Patrick deWitt comes the story of Bob Comet, a man who has lived his life through and for literature, unaware that his own experience is a poignant and affecting narrative in itself.
Bob Comet is a retired librarian passing his solitary days surrounded by books and small comforts in a mint-colored house in Portland, Oregon. One morning on his daily walk he encounters a confused elderly woman lost in a market and returns her to the senior center that is her home. Hoping to fill the void he’s known since retiring, he begins volunteering at the center. Here, as a community of strange peers gathers around Bob, and following a happenstance brush with a painful complication from his past, the events of his life and the details of his character are revealed.
Behind Bob Comet’s straight-man façade is the story of an unhappy child’s runaway adventure during the last days of the Second World War, of true love won and stolen away, of the purpose and pride found in the librarian’s vocation, and of the pleasures of a life lived to the side of the masses. Bob’s experiences are imbued with melancholy but also a bright, sustained comedy; he has a talent for locating bizarre and outsize players to welcome onto the stage of his life.
With his inimitable verve, skewed humor, and compassion for the outcast, Patrick deWitt has written a wide-ranging and ambitious document of the introvert’s condition. The Librarianist celebrates the extraordinary in the so-called ordinary life, and depicts beautifully the turbulence that sometimes exists beneath a surface of serenity.
©2023 Patrick deWitt (P)2023 HarperCollins PublishersListeners also enjoyed...
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- A Novel
- By: Patrick deWitt
- Narrated by: Lorna Raver
- Length: 6 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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Frances Price - tart widow, possessive mother, and Upper East Side force of nature - is in dire straits, beset by scandal and impending bankruptcy. Her adult son Malcolm is no help, mired in a permanent state of arrested development. And then there’s the Price’s aging cat, Small Frank, who Frances believes houses the spirit of her late husband, an infamously immoral litigator and world-class cad whose gruesome tabloid death rendered Frances and Malcolm social outcasts. Putting penury and pariahdom behind them, the family decides to cut their losses and head for the exit.
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deWitt deLivers Eccentric Quirky Characters
- By Liberty on 09-23-18
By: Patrick deWitt
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Undermajordomo Minor
- A Novel
- By: Patrick deWitt
- Narrated by: Simon Prebble
- Length: 7 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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Performance
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Story
Lucien (Lucy) Minor is the resident odd duck in the bucolic hamlet of Bury. Friendless and loveless, young and aimless, Lucy is a compulsive liar, a sickly weakling in a town famous for producing brutish giants. Then Lucy accepts employment assisting the Majordomo of the remote, foreboding Castle Von Aux.
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Sometimes a train is just a train
- By Darwin8u on 09-21-15
By: Patrick deWitt
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The Sisters Brothers
- A Novel
- By: Patrick deWitt
- Narrated by: John Pruden
- Length: 7 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
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Performance
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Story
Hermann Kermit Warm is going to die. The enigmatic and powerful man known only as the Commodore has ordered it, and his henchmen, Eli and Charlie Sisters, will make sure of it. Though Eli doesn't share his brother's appetite for whiskey and killing, he's never known anything else. But their prey isn't an easy mark, and on the road from Oregon City to Warm's gold-mining claim outside Sacramento, Eli begins to question what he does for a living - and whom he does it for. With The Sisters Brothers, Patrick deWitt pays homage to the classic Western....
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The Cruelty To Animals is Hard to Take
- By Leslie on 07-22-12
By: Patrick deWitt
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Ablutions
- By: Patrick DeWitt
- Narrated by: Patrick Dewitt
- Length: 4 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
In a famous but declining Hollywood bar works A Barman. Morbidly amused by the decadent decay of his surroundings, he watches the patrons fall into their nightly oblivion, making notes for his novel. In the hope of uncovering their secrets and motives, he establishes tentative friendships with the cast of variously pathological regulars.
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A fuzzy, high-energy migrane of a novel.
- By Darwin8u on 10-08-12
By: Patrick DeWitt
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Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow
- A Novel
- By: Gabrielle Zevin
- Narrated by: Jennifer Kim, Julian Cihi
- Length: 13 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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Performance
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Story
Sam and Sadie—two college friends, often in love, but never lovers—become creative partners in a dazzling and intricately imagined world of video game design, where success brings them fame, joy, tragedy, duplicity, and, ultimately, a kind of immortality. It is a love story, but not one you have heard before.
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This book sucked the life out of me
- By RMan on 08-08-22
By: Gabrielle Zevin
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The Great Unexpected
- By: Dan Mooney
- Narrated by: Aidan Kelly
- Length: 10 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Joel lives in a nursing home, and he’s not one bit happy about it. He hates being told when to eat, when to sleep, when to take his pills. He’s fed up with life and begins to plan a way out when his new roommate, a retired soap opera actor named Frank, moves in and turns the nursing-home community upside down.
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Really enjoyed this
- By Carmen K. Pollic on 04-10-23
By: Dan Mooney
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French Exit
- A Novel
- By: Patrick deWitt
- Narrated by: Lorna Raver
- Length: 6 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Frances Price - tart widow, possessive mother, and Upper East Side force of nature - is in dire straits, beset by scandal and impending bankruptcy. Her adult son Malcolm is no help, mired in a permanent state of arrested development. And then there’s the Price’s aging cat, Small Frank, who Frances believes houses the spirit of her late husband, an infamously immoral litigator and world-class cad whose gruesome tabloid death rendered Frances and Malcolm social outcasts. Putting penury and pariahdom behind them, the family decides to cut their losses and head for the exit.
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deWitt deLivers Eccentric Quirky Characters
- By Liberty on 09-23-18
By: Patrick deWitt
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Undermajordomo Minor
- A Novel
- By: Patrick deWitt
- Narrated by: Simon Prebble
- Length: 7 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Lucien (Lucy) Minor is the resident odd duck in the bucolic hamlet of Bury. Friendless and loveless, young and aimless, Lucy is a compulsive liar, a sickly weakling in a town famous for producing brutish giants. Then Lucy accepts employment assisting the Majordomo of the remote, foreboding Castle Von Aux.
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Sometimes a train is just a train
- By Darwin8u on 09-21-15
By: Patrick deWitt
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The Sisters Brothers
- A Novel
- By: Patrick deWitt
- Narrated by: John Pruden
- Length: 7 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Hermann Kermit Warm is going to die. The enigmatic and powerful man known only as the Commodore has ordered it, and his henchmen, Eli and Charlie Sisters, will make sure of it. Though Eli doesn't share his brother's appetite for whiskey and killing, he's never known anything else. But their prey isn't an easy mark, and on the road from Oregon City to Warm's gold-mining claim outside Sacramento, Eli begins to question what he does for a living - and whom he does it for. With The Sisters Brothers, Patrick deWitt pays homage to the classic Western....
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The Cruelty To Animals is Hard to Take
- By Leslie on 07-22-12
By: Patrick deWitt
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Ablutions
- By: Patrick DeWitt
- Narrated by: Patrick Dewitt
- Length: 4 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In a famous but declining Hollywood bar works A Barman. Morbidly amused by the decadent decay of his surroundings, he watches the patrons fall into their nightly oblivion, making notes for his novel. In the hope of uncovering their secrets and motives, he establishes tentative friendships with the cast of variously pathological regulars.
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A fuzzy, high-energy migrane of a novel.
- By Darwin8u on 10-08-12
By: Patrick DeWitt
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Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow
- A Novel
- By: Gabrielle Zevin
- Narrated by: Jennifer Kim, Julian Cihi
- Length: 13 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Sam and Sadie—two college friends, often in love, but never lovers—become creative partners in a dazzling and intricately imagined world of video game design, where success brings them fame, joy, tragedy, duplicity, and, ultimately, a kind of immortality. It is a love story, but not one you have heard before.
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This book sucked the life out of me
- By RMan on 08-08-22
By: Gabrielle Zevin
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The Great Unexpected
- By: Dan Mooney
- Narrated by: Aidan Kelly
- Length: 10 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Joel lives in a nursing home, and he’s not one bit happy about it. He hates being told when to eat, when to sleep, when to take his pills. He’s fed up with life and begins to plan a way out when his new roommate, a retired soap opera actor named Frank, moves in and turns the nursing-home community upside down.
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Really enjoyed this
- By Carmen K. Pollic on 04-10-23
By: Dan Mooney
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What You Are Looking For Is in the Library
- A Novel
- By: Michiko Aoyama
- Narrated by: Hanako Footman, Susan Momoko Hingley, Kenichiro Thomson, and others
- Length: 7 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
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What are you looking for? So asks Tokyo’s most enigmatic librarian. For Sayuri Komachi is able to sense exactly what each visitor to her library is searching for and provide just the book recommendation to help them find it. A restless retail assistant looks to gain new skills, a mother tries to overcome demotion at work after maternity leave, a conscientious accountant yearns to open an antique store, a recently retired salaryman searches for newfound purpose. In Komachi’s unique book recommendations they will find just what they need to achieve their dreams.
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The power of honesty and an open mind
- By ili pika on 09-10-23
By: Michiko Aoyama
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Blood Test
- A Comedy
- By: Charles Baxter
- Narrated by: Rob Shapiro
- Length: 7 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
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In this fresh take on love and trouble in America, Brock Hobson, an insurance salesman and Sunday-school teacher, finds his equilibrium disturbed by the results of a predictive blood test. Baxter, a master storyteller, brings us a gradually building rollercoaster narrative, and a protagonist who is impertinent, searching, and hilariously relatable.
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Creepy.. and also boring as hell
- By BallerinaAstronaut on 10-31-24
By: Charles Baxter
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The Nix
- A Novel
- By: Nathan Hill
- Narrated by: Ari Fliakos
- Length: 21 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
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It’s 2011, and Samuel Andresen-Anderson—college professor, stalled writer—has a Nix of his own: his mother, Faye. He hasn’t seen her in decades, not since she abandoned the family when he was a boy. Now she’s re-appeared, having committed an absurd crime that electrifies the nightly news, beguiles the internet, and inflames a politically divided country. The media paints Faye as a radical hippie with a sordid past, but as far as Samuel knows, his mother was an ordinary girl who married her high-school sweetheart.
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Is There An Editor In The House??
- By Sara on 11-03-16
By: Nathan Hill
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The Sellout
- A Novel
- By: Paul Beatty
- Narrated by: Prentice Onayemi
- Length: 9 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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A biting satire about a young man's isolated upbringing and the race trial that sends him to the Supreme Court, Paul Beatty's The Sellout showcases a comic genius at the top of his game. It challenges the sacred tenets of the United States Constitution, urban life, the civil rights movement, the father-son relationship, and the holy grail of racial equality: the black Chinese restaurant.
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Appreciated it, but didn't like it
- By Eugenia on 04-14-16
By: Paul Beatty
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The Bullet Swallower
- A Novel
- By: Elizabeth Gonzalez James
- Narrated by: Lee Osorio
- Length: 9 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
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Story
In 1895, Antonio Sonoro is the latest in a long line of ruthless men. He’s good with his gun and drawn to trouble but he’s also out of money and out of options. A drought has ravaged the town of Dorado, Mexico, where he lives with his wife and children, and so when he hears about a train laden with gold and other treasures, he sets off for Houston to rob it—with his younger brother Hugo in tow. But when the heist goes awry and Hugo is killed by the Texas Rangers, Antonio finds himself launched into a quest for revenge that endangers not only his life and his family, but his eternal soul.
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timely story
- By Barbara S on 02-14-24
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The Door-to-Door Bookstore
- A Novel
- By: Carsten Henn
- Narrated by: Raphael Corkhill
- Length: 6 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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Performance
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Story
Small-town German bookseller Carl Kollhoff delivers his books to special customers in the evening hours after closing time, walking through the picturesque alleys of the city. These people are almost like friends to him, and he is their most important connection to the world. When Kollhoff unexpectedly loses his job, it takes the power of books and a nine-year-old girl to make them all find the courage to rebuild their bonds with each other.
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Delightful
- By susan boardman on 07-11-23
By: Carsten Henn
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The Personal Librarian
- By: Marie Benedict, Victoria Christopher Murray
- Narrated by: Robin Miles
- Length: 12 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
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Performance
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Story
In her twenties, Belle da Costa Greene is hired by J. P. Morgan to curate a collection of rare manuscripts, books, and artwork for his newly built Pierpont Morgan Library. Belle becomes a fixture in New York City society and one of the most powerful people in the art and book world, known for her impeccable taste and shrewd negotiating for critical works as she helps create a world-class collection.
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A Treat For This Academic Librarian!
- By AlTonya on 07-14-21
By: Marie Benedict, and others
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Question 7
- By: Richard Flanagan
- Narrated by: Richard Flanagan
- Length: 7 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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Performance
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Story
By way of H. G. Wells and Rebecca West’s affair through 1930s nuclear physics to Flanagan's father working as a slave laborer near Hiroshima when the atom bomb is dropped, this daisy chain of events reaches fission when Flanagan as a young man finds himself trapped in a rapid on a wild river not knowing if he is to live or to die.
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Who loves longer?
- By Diane on 03-26-25
By: Richard Flanagan
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My Friends
- A Novel
- By: Fredrik Backman
- Narrated by: Marin Ireland
- Length: 13 hrs
- Unabridged
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Most people don’t even notice them—three tiny figures sitting at the end of a long pier in the corner of one of the most famous paintings in the world. Most people think it’s just a depiction of the sea. But Louisa, an artist herself, knows otherwise and she is determined to find out the story of these three enigmatic figures. Twenty-five years earlier, in a distant town, a group of teenagers find refuge from their difficult home lives by spending their days laughing and telling stories out on a pier.
By: Fredrik Backman
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And Every Morning the Way Home Gets Longer and Longer
- A Novella
- By: Fredrik Backman
- Narrated by: David Morse
- Length: 1 hr and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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Performance
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Story
Grandpa and Noah are sitting on a bench in a square that keeps getting smaller every day. The square is strange but also familiar, full of the odds and ends that have made up their lives: Grandpa's work desk, the stuffed dragon that Grandpa once gave to Noah, the sweet-smelling hyacinths that Grandma loved to grow in her garden.
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Heartbreakingly Perfect
- By Jmo930 on 11-21-16
By: Fredrik Backman
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Birnam Wood
- A Novel
- By: Eleanor Catton
- Narrated by: Saskia Maarleveld
- Length: 12 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
A landslide has closed the Korowai Pass on New Zealand’s South Island, cutting off the town of Thorndike and leaving a sizable farm abandoned. The disaster presents an opportunity for Birnam Wood, an undeclared, unregulated, sometimes-criminal, sometimes-philanthropic guerrilla gardening collective that plants crops wherever no one will notice. For years, the group has struggled to break even. To occupy the farm at Thorndike would mean a shot at solvency at last. But the enigmatic American billionaire Robert Lemoine also has an interest in the place.
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Outstanding thriller w/ exceptional character development
- By Bradley T. Collins on 04-21-23
By: Eleanor Catton
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Trust (Pulitzer Prize Winner)
- By: Hernan Diaz
- Narrated by: Edoardo Ballerini, Jonathan Davis, Mozhan Marnò, and others
- Length: 10 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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Even through the roar and effervescence of the 1920s, everyone in New York has heard of Benjamin and Helen Rask. He is a legendary Wall Street tycoon; she is the daughter of eccentric aristocrats. Together, they have risen to the very top of a world of seemingly endless wealth—all as a decade of excess and speculation draws to an end. But at what cost have they acquired their immense fortune? This is the mystery at the center of Bonds, a successful 1937 novel that all of New York seems to have read. Yet there are other versions of this tale of privilege and deceit.
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Before Purchasing
- By JLDLOfficial on 08-13-22
By: Hernan Diaz
What listeners say about The Librarianist
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Performance
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- Kristyn Rose
- 02-02-24
Slow to start but worth the wait!
I had trouble getting into this book, at first. I even had to restart it a couple of chapters in because it felt like I was missing something. The story seemed to meander for a little while, but the mixture of personalities was really interesting. Then, a little twist came, and it really took off! Sometimes, you’ll laugh out loud and other times it will break your heart. But it’s a very satisfying read.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Jane
- 07-25-23
Loved this book.
Clear, visual writing with wonderful characters and story line. Just right.
Eager to read/listen to more of Patrick deWitt’s novels.
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- Susan Peters
- 11-18-24
Emotionally satisfying
Lovely story. Simple yet still tugged on my heart strings. Highly recommend. I feel like I know all these characters.
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- Ellen
- 02-17-25
Extraordinary Ordinary Life
This book was very different from what I expected to be a senior citizen romance-mystery but instead it was a window into the fascinating life of an ordinary librarian and the depth that he possess
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- Regina
- 01-06-24
Wonderful Listen
A new author to me, Ill look for others of his work. Charming, funny, insightful and heartbreaking. Well written, wonderful characters suffering the human condition and the damage done long before we meet. The story starts slowly and ends with little fanfare. It is an existence observed.
Excellent narration as well
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3 people found this helpful
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- KSK5
- 09-12-23
A deeply meaningful and quirky narrative.
I found the novel quite absorbing.
With many poignant moments. I laughed quite a lot But also became quite absorbed in the characters especially bob. The narration was wonderful. I will explore more of the books of this author.
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2 people found this helpful
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- Palo Verde
- 03-03-24
Just a good old comfortable story!
I loved this book. The narration starts off flat, initially detracting from the story, but stick with it. At some point the narrator becomes more animated and the story moves forward with vivid imagery. A tale to be told.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Barbara S
- 07-09-23
An entertaining audio
I was a huge fan of author Patrick deWitt’s “French Exit”. His newly released story, “The Librarianist” is a hoot and a half. The reason to read it? It’s deWitt’s oddball and eccentric characters and their observations that populate this story. I double dog dare you to read this without unwavering amusement in the form of chuckling.
deWitt’s Librarianist is Bob Comet, who is 71 when the story begins, and a retired librarian. He lives in his childhood home, a mint green number in Portland Oregon. Bob loves books and the quiet life it allows. On a. walk, Bob chances upon a woman at a 7-Eleven who has been staring at the refrigerated section of energy drinks for close to an hour, much to the dismay of the clerk. The woman is a resident at a Senior Citizen Center as indicated by her name tag; Bob returns her to the home and asks if he can volunteer reading to the residents. Bob’s volunteer attempt is met with derision by the inmates. He probably shouldn’t have led with Edgar Allan Poe and Russian Literature.
deWitt moves the story from the current, 2006, to 1942, when we learn of Bob’s early interest in the library. He was in high school when he determined he wanted to become a librarian. It was at his first librarian job that he met his wife Connie and his best friend Ethan. We learn early that Ethan and Connie betray Ethan. This event defines Ethan and furthers him along a melancholy path. In fact, Bob is the epitome of loneliness.
The story picks up in much needed silliness when deWitt has Bob flashback to another defining event in his life which occurred in 1945. Bob went on the lam; yes, he ran away from home at the age of 11. He finds his way on a train that takes him to the Hotel Elba where he meets Jane and Ida, two thespians. Here, deWitt has great fun with the word…thespians.
Bob is an introverted loner, but he does make some connections once he volunteers at the Senior Center. I was charmed by the story in the same way that I was charmed by Ruth Ozeki’s “The Book of Form and Emptiness”. Both stories are sad and life affirming at the same time. It’s the cleverness of prose that is the reason for reading the story. One must experience reading deWitt to appreciate his abilities at reflecting the absurd.
I listened to the audio, narrated by Jim Meskimen. I did end up changing the reading speed to 1.2x. I enjoyed Meskimen’s interpretations of the differing voices.
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8 people found this helpful
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- SA
- 08-31-24
It was ok
It was okay. There was a weird flashback in the middle of the book, I think to help drag out the story. It was so boring I had to skip 4 chapters. It was interesting in parts and had a lot of potential. But overall I wouldn’t recommend it.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Audrey L. Larsen
- 02-19-25
I liked it well enough
I liked the story, mostly. There was a section at the end that felt completely out of place and I didn't really enjoy that part. Overall it was pretty good.
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