-
The Magic Kingdom
- A Novel
- Narrated by: Danny Campbell, MacLeod Andrews
- Length: 14 hrs and 11 mins
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Buy for $20.25
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
Publisher's summary
From one of America’s most beloved storytellers: a dazzling tapestry of love and faith, memory and imagination that questions what it means to look back and accept one’s place in history. In 1971, Harley Mann revisits his childhood, recounting his family's move to Florida’s swamplands—mere miles away from what would become Disney World—to join a community of Shakers.
“Eerily timely. Can what’s gone wrong in the past offer keys to the future? The Magic Kingdom confronts our longings for Paradise; also the inner serpents that are to be found in all such enchanted gardens.”—Margaret Atwood, author of The Testaments, via Twitter
Property speculator Harley Mann begins recording his life story onto a reel-to-reel machine, reflecting on his youth in the early twentieth century. He recounts that after his father’s sudden death, his family migrated down to Florida to join a Shaker colony. Led by Elder John, a generous man with a mysterious past, the colony devoted itself to labor, faith, and charity, rejecting all temptations that lay beyond the property. Though this way of life initially saved Harley and his family from complete ruin, when Harley began falling in love with Sadie Pratt, a consumptive patient living on the grounds, his loyalty to the Shakers and their conservative worldview grew strained and, ultimately, broke.
As Harley dictates his story across more than half a century—meditating on youth, Florida’s everchanging landscape, and the search for an American utopia—the truth about Sadie, Elder John, and the Shakers comes to light, clarifying the past and present alike. With an expert eye and stunning vision, Russell Banks delivers a wholly captivating portrait of a man navigating Americana and the passage of time.
Listeners also enjoyed...
-
Cloudsplitter
- A Novel
- By: Russell Banks
- Narrated by: Pete Larkin
- Length: 29 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Deeply researched, brilliantly plotted, and peopled with a cast of unforgettable characters both historical and wholly invented, Cloudsplitter is dazzling in its re-creation of the political and social landscape of our history during the years before the Civil War, when slavery was tearing the country apart. But within this broader scope, Russell Banks has given us a riveting, suspenseful, heartbreaking narrative filled with intimate scenes of domestic life, of violence and action in battle, of romance and familial life and death that make the listener feel in astonishing ways what it is like to be alive in that time.
-
-
Captivating read
- By James P. Barraza on 08-02-17
By: Russell Banks
-
Affliction
- By: Russell Banks
- Narrated by: Richard Ferrone
- Length: 15 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Wade Whitehouse is an improbable protagonist for a tragedy. A well-digger and policeman in a bleak New Hampshire town, he is a former high-school star gone to beer fat, a loner with a mean streak. It is a mark of Russell Banks' artistry and understanding that Wade comes to loom in one's mind as a blue-collar American Everyman afflicted by the dark secret of the macho tradition. Told by his articulate, equally scarred younger brother, Wade's story becomes as spellbinding and inexorable as a fuse burning its way to the dynamite.
-
-
Intense family drama
- By Lorna Bolton Mills on 01-23-24
By: Russell Banks
-
The Sweet Hereafter
- By: Russell Banks
- Narrated by: Dawn Harvey, Chris Andrew Ciulla, Dominic Hoffman, and others
- Length: 8 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In The Sweet Hereafter, Russell Banks tells a story that begins with a school bus accident. Using four different narrators, Banks creates a small-town morality play that addresses one of life's most agonizing questions: When the worst thing happens, who do you blame?
-
-
Read the book, see the movie
- By RueRue on 11-24-20
By: Russell Banks
-
Rule of the Bone
- A Novel
- By: Russell Banks
- Narrated by: Kirby Heyborne
- Length: 11 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When we first meet him, Chappie is a punked-out teenager living with his mother and abusive stepfather in an upstate New York trailer park. During this time, he slips into drugs and petty crime. Rejected by his parents, out of school and in trouble with the police, he claims for himself a new identity as a permanent outsider; he gets a crossed-bones tattoo on his arm, and takes the name "Bone."
-
-
Out of the mouths of teenagers
- By Lori K. on 01-07-17
By: Russell Banks
-
Continental Drift
- By: Russell Banks
- Narrated by: Zach Villa
- Length: 13 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Now available for the first time in audiobook format, a powerful literary classic from one of contemporary fiction's most acclaimed and important writers. Russell Banks' Continental Drift is a masterful novel of hope lost and gained and a gripping, indelible story of fragile lives uprooted and transformed by injustice, disappointment, and the seductions and realities of the American dream.
-
-
Give up and die
- By AI on 12-09-21
By: Russell Banks
-
Lost Memory of Skin
- By: Russell Banks
- Narrated by: Scott Shepherd
- Length: 13 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Suspended in a strangely modern-day version of limbo, the young man at the center of Russell Banks’s uncompromising and morally complex new novel must create a life for himself in the wake of incarceration. Known in his new identity only as the Kid, and on probation after doing time for a liaison with an underage girl, he is shackled to a GPS monitoring device and forbidden to live within 2,500 feet of anywhere children might gather. With nowhere else to go, the Kid takes up residence under a south Florida causeway, in a makeshift encampment with other convicted sex offenders.
-
-
Amazing "Must Read" Tale of (In)Justice in America
- By Ellen H. Anderson on 10-15-11
By: Russell Banks
-
Cloudsplitter
- A Novel
- By: Russell Banks
- Narrated by: Pete Larkin
- Length: 29 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Deeply researched, brilliantly plotted, and peopled with a cast of unforgettable characters both historical and wholly invented, Cloudsplitter is dazzling in its re-creation of the political and social landscape of our history during the years before the Civil War, when slavery was tearing the country apart. But within this broader scope, Russell Banks has given us a riveting, suspenseful, heartbreaking narrative filled with intimate scenes of domestic life, of violence and action in battle, of romance and familial life and death that make the listener feel in astonishing ways what it is like to be alive in that time.
-
-
Captivating read
- By James P. Barraza on 08-02-17
By: Russell Banks
-
Affliction
- By: Russell Banks
- Narrated by: Richard Ferrone
- Length: 15 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Wade Whitehouse is an improbable protagonist for a tragedy. A well-digger and policeman in a bleak New Hampshire town, he is a former high-school star gone to beer fat, a loner with a mean streak. It is a mark of Russell Banks' artistry and understanding that Wade comes to loom in one's mind as a blue-collar American Everyman afflicted by the dark secret of the macho tradition. Told by his articulate, equally scarred younger brother, Wade's story becomes as spellbinding and inexorable as a fuse burning its way to the dynamite.
-
-
Intense family drama
- By Lorna Bolton Mills on 01-23-24
By: Russell Banks
-
The Sweet Hereafter
- By: Russell Banks
- Narrated by: Dawn Harvey, Chris Andrew Ciulla, Dominic Hoffman, and others
- Length: 8 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In The Sweet Hereafter, Russell Banks tells a story that begins with a school bus accident. Using four different narrators, Banks creates a small-town morality play that addresses one of life's most agonizing questions: When the worst thing happens, who do you blame?
-
-
Read the book, see the movie
- By RueRue on 11-24-20
By: Russell Banks
-
Rule of the Bone
- A Novel
- By: Russell Banks
- Narrated by: Kirby Heyborne
- Length: 11 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When we first meet him, Chappie is a punked-out teenager living with his mother and abusive stepfather in an upstate New York trailer park. During this time, he slips into drugs and petty crime. Rejected by his parents, out of school and in trouble with the police, he claims for himself a new identity as a permanent outsider; he gets a crossed-bones tattoo on his arm, and takes the name "Bone."
-
-
Out of the mouths of teenagers
- By Lori K. on 01-07-17
By: Russell Banks
-
Continental Drift
- By: Russell Banks
- Narrated by: Zach Villa
- Length: 13 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Now available for the first time in audiobook format, a powerful literary classic from one of contemporary fiction's most acclaimed and important writers. Russell Banks' Continental Drift is a masterful novel of hope lost and gained and a gripping, indelible story of fragile lives uprooted and transformed by injustice, disappointment, and the seductions and realities of the American dream.
-
-
Give up and die
- By AI on 12-09-21
By: Russell Banks
-
Lost Memory of Skin
- By: Russell Banks
- Narrated by: Scott Shepherd
- Length: 13 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Suspended in a strangely modern-day version of limbo, the young man at the center of Russell Banks’s uncompromising and morally complex new novel must create a life for himself in the wake of incarceration. Known in his new identity only as the Kid, and on probation after doing time for a liaison with an underage girl, he is shackled to a GPS monitoring device and forbidden to live within 2,500 feet of anywhere children might gather. With nowhere else to go, the Kid takes up residence under a south Florida causeway, in a makeshift encampment with other convicted sex offenders.
-
-
Amazing "Must Read" Tale of (In)Justice in America
- By Ellen H. Anderson on 10-15-11
By: Russell Banks
-
Tom Lake
- A Novel
- By: Ann Patchett
- Narrated by: Meryl Streep
- Length: 11 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the spring of 2020, Lara’s three daughters return to the family's orchard in Northern Michigan. While picking cherries, they beg their mother to tell them the story of Peter Duke, a famous actor with whom she shared both a stage and a romance years before at a theater company called Tom Lake. As Lara recalls the past, her daughters examine their own lives and relationship with their mother, and are forced to reconsider the world and everything they thought they knew.
-
-
So incredibly boring
- By Rhonda Morrison on 08-05-23
By: Ann Patchett
-
Demon Copperhead
- A Novel
- By: Barbara Kingsolver
- Narrated by: Charlie Thurston
- Length: 21 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Set in the mountains of southern Appalachia, Demon Copperhead is the story of a boy born to a teenaged single mother in a single-wide trailer, with no assets beyond his dead father’s good looks and copper-colored hair, a caustic wit, and a fierce talent for survival. Relayed in his own unsparing voice, Demon braves the modern perils of foster care, child labor, derelict schools, athletic success, addiction, disastrous loves, and crushing losses.
-
-
Wow! It’s a Masterpiece
- By Billy on 10-25-22
-
The Covenant of Water
- By: Abraham Verghese
- Narrated by: Abraham Verghese
- Length: 31 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Spanning the years 1900 to 1977, The Covenant of Water is set in Kerala, on South India’s Malabar Coast, and follows three generations of a family that suffers a peculiar affliction: in every generation, at least one person dies by drowning—and in Kerala, water is everywhere. At the turn of the century, a twelve-year-old girl from Kerala’s long-existing Christian community, grieving the death of her father, is sent by boat to her wedding, where she will meet her forty-year-old husband for the first time.
-
-
Story Telling At Its Best
- By Regina on 05-06-23
By: Abraham Verghese
-
The Fearsome Foursome and Midnight at Madame Leota's
- Tales from the Haunted Mansion: Volumes I & II
- By: John Esposito, Amicus Arcane
- Narrated by: Malcolm Hillgartner
- Length: 8 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Welcome, foolish mortals, to Disney Press' spookiest chapter book series yet: Tales from the Haunted Mansion! Based on the attractions from the Disney Parks, each book tells the terrifying tales of some of the Haunted Mansion's 999 ghosts.
-
-
Fun book for kids
- By Patrick Jaszewski on 08-06-18
By: John Esposito, and others
-
Killing Commendatore
- A Novel
- By: Haruki Murakami, Philip Gabriel - translator, Ted Goossen - translator
- Narrated by: Kirby Heyborne
- Length: 28 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In Killing Commendatore, a 30-something portrait painter in Tokyo is abandoned by his wife and finds himself holed up in the mountain home of a famous artist, Tomohiko Amada. When he discovers a previously unseen painting in the attic, he unintentionally opens a circle of mysterious circumstances. To close it, he must complete a journey that involves a mysterious ringing bell, a two-foot-high physical manifestation of an Idea, a dapper businessman who lives across the valley, a precocious 13-year-old girl, a Nazi assassination attempt during World War II in Vienna.
-
-
A Masterpiece and A Good Novel To Start
- By Elif Kaya on 10-18-18
By: Haruki Murakami, and others
-
The Water Dancer (Oprah’s Book Club)
- A Novel
- By: Ta-Nehisi Coates
- Narrated by: Joe Morton
- Length: 14 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Young Hiram Walker was born into bondage. When his mother was sold away, Hiram was robbed of all memory of her - but was gifted with a mysterious power. Years later, when Hiram almost drowns in a river, that same power saves his life. This brush with death births an urgency in Hiram and a daring scheme: to escape from the only home he’s ever known. So begins an unexpected journey that takes Hiram from the corrupt grandeur of Virginia’s proud plantations to desperate guerrilla cells in the wilderness, from the coffin of the South to dangerously idealistic movements in the North.
-
-
We Must Always Remember
- By Cammie on 09-28-19
By: Ta-Nehisi Coates
-
The Scarlet Plague [Classic Tales Edition]
- By: Jack London
- Narrated by: B.J. Harrison
- Length: 2 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Twelve billionaires rule the United States, while those called freemen are forced to serve the rich. But that was 60 years ago, before the Scarlet Plague. In this post-apocalyptic novella, a ragged and tattered old man tells his progeny of what life was like before The Scarlet Plague appeared - and wiped out civilization as they knew it.
-
-
wonderful listen very relevant today!
- By Johnny on 12-02-17
By: Jack London
-
When We Were Birds
- A Novel
- By: Ayanna Lloyd Banwo
- Narrated by: Sydney Darius, Wendell Manwarren
- Length: 8 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the old house on a hill, where the city meets the rainforest, Yejide’s mother is dying. She is leaving behind a legacy that now passes to Yejide: one St Bernard woman in every generation has the power to shepherd the city’s souls into the afterlife. But after years of suffering her mother’s neglect and bitterness, Yejide is looking for a way out.
-
-
PERFECTION!!!
- By Ifayemisi on 07-13-22
-
Be Mine
- A Frank Bascombe Novel
- By: Richard Ford
- Narrated by: Richard Poe
- Length: 12 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Over the course of four celebrated works of fiction and almost forty years, Richard Ford has crafted an ambitious, incisive, and singular view of American life as lived. Unconstrained, astute, provocative, often laugh-out-loud funny, Frank Bascombe is once more our guide to the great American midway.
-
-
Frank 4
- By lorraine kennedy on 08-03-23
By: Richard Ford
-
Nobody's Fool
- By: Richard Russo
- Narrated by: Ron McLarty
- Length: 24 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Divorced from his own wife and carrying on halfheartedly with another man's, saddled with a bum knee and friends who make enemies redundant, Sully now has one new problem to cope with: a long-estranged son who is in imminent danger of following in his father's footsteps. With its uproarious humor and a heart that embraces humanity's follies as well as its triumphs, Nobody's Fool, from Pulitzer Prize-winning author, Richard Russo, is storytelling at its most generous. Nobody’s Fool was made into a movie starring Paul Newman, Bruce Willis, Jessica Tandy, and Melody Griffith.
-
-
Wonderful Book Fabulous Narrator
- By Marsha on 04-27-05
By: Richard Russo
-
The Sweetness of Water (Oprah’s Book Club)
- A Novel
- By: Nathan Harris
- Narrated by: William DeMeritt
- Length: 12 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the waning days of the Civil War, brothers Prentiss and Landry—freed by the Emancipation Proclamation—seek refuge on the homestead of George Walker and his wife, Isabelle. The Walkers, wracked by the loss of their only son to the war, hire the brothers to work their farm. Prentiss and Landry, meanwhile, plan to save money for the journey north and a chance to reunite with their mother, who was sold away when they were boys. Equal parts beauty and terror, The Sweetness of Water is an epic whose grandeur locates humanity and love amid the most harrowing circumstances.
-
-
Masterful storytelling and an exceptional audio performance
- By Pamela on 06-18-21
By: Nathan Harris
-
Coming Home
- By: Rosamunde Pilcher
- Narrated by: Helen Johns
- Length: 40 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Set against the backdrop of an elegant Cornwall mansion before World War II and a vast continent-spanning canvas during the turbulent war years, this captivating story tells of an extraordinary young woman's coming of age, coming to grips with love and sadness, and in every sense of the term, coming home.... In 1935, Judith Dunbar is left behind at a British boarding school when her mother and baby sister go off to join her father in Singapore.
-
-
Marvelous story line, Excellent narration
- By Amazon Customer on 03-17-18
Critic reviews
“Masterfully crafted . . . The Magic Kingdom is not the experience as it happened but as it’s been distilled for decades in the crucible of a guilty conscience. [Banks is] interested in the way grand schemes intended to perfect human nature produce instead a combination of secrecy and shame that can spark wildly unpredictable results . . . Always in the background of Harley’s reminiscence hovers Disney’s effort to create the Happiest Place on Earth—just the latest project of dreamers and schemers who sought to make Florida in their image . . . Banks has created another fascinating volume in his exploration of the American experience.”—Ron Charles, The Washington Post
“Engrossing . . . As ever, Banks writes gorgeously about [Florida’s] natural wonders, pointing out the strange magnetism a place needs to have to attract the world’s detritus . . . Banks is writing with an eye to the present.”—Mark Athiakis, Los Angeles Times
“Tender . . . Mr. Banks has created a quietly beautiful memorial to a transitory way of life that would soon disappear behind the theme-park attractions of contemporary America.”—Sam Sacks, The Wall Street Journal
Related to this topic
-
Lighthouse
- By: Eugenia Price
- Narrated by: Tessa Richards
- Length: 13 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Raised in post-Revolution Granville, Massachusetts, James Gould could only imagine the beauty and warmth of the lands to the south. It was there that he longed to build bridges and lighthouses from his very own designs and plans. His gripping story unfolds as Gould follows his dream to the raw settlement of Bangor on the Penobscot River, St. Simons Island off the coast of Georgia, lawless Spanish East Florida, and back - at last and finally - to St. Simons.
-
-
Re: Wonderful Story
- By Cmorgan on 01-27-23
By: Eugenia Price
-
Belle Cora
- A Novel
- By: Phillip Margulies
- Narrated by: Graham Rowat, Elizabeth Wiley
- Length: 25 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
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.
-
-
excellent
- By Patricia on 05-15-20
-
Twelve Years a Slave
- By: Solomon Northup
- Narrated by: Stephen L. Vernon
- Length: 8 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Twelve Years a Slave is an account of actual events that took place in the life of Solomon Northup, during the pre-Civil War era of the 1840s. It follows the trials and tribulations of an educated African American man that was born into freedom and later kidnapped, taken away from his family, and forced into slavery.
-
-
What a great book!!!
- By Andrew Robbin on 09-07-14
By: Solomon Northup
-
The Prophet
- By: Khalil Gibrán
- Narrated by: Peter Batchelor
- Length: 1 hr and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
World-famous 26 prose poetry fables written in English by the Lebanese-American poet and writer. It was originally published in 1923. It is Gibran's best known work. The Prophet has been translated into over 100 different languages, making it one of the most translated books in history.
-
-
Literally the best book!
- By Amazon Customer on 04-25-20
By: Khalil Gibrán
-
The First Man
- By: Albert Camus
- Narrated by: Jefferson Mays
- Length: 8 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In The First Man, Albert Camus tells the story of Jacques Cormery, a boy who lived a life much like his own. Camus summons up the sights, sounds, and textures of a childhood circumscribed by poverty and a father's death yet redeemed by the austere beauty of Algeria and the boy's attachment to his nearly deaf-mute mother. The result is a moving journey through the lost landscape of youth that also discloses the wellsprings of Camus's aesthetic powers and moral vision.
-
-
Great Narration by Jefferson Mays
- By Sean Patrick Stevens on 07-31-21
By: Albert Camus
-
Black Boy
- By: Richard Wright
- Narrated by: Peter Francis James
- Length: 15 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Richard Wright's powerful and eloquent memoir of his journey from innocence to experience in the Jim Crow South. At once an unashamed confession and a profound indictment, Black Boy is a poignant record of struggle and endurance - a seminal literary work that illuminates our own time. The once controversial, now classic American autobiography measures the brutality and rawness of the Jim Crow South against the sheer desperate will it took to survive as a Black boy. Seventy-five years later, his words continue to reverberate.
-
-
Outstanding
- By Trevin Harvey on 11-11-20
By: Richard Wright
-
Lighthouse
- By: Eugenia Price
- Narrated by: Tessa Richards
- Length: 13 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Raised in post-Revolution Granville, Massachusetts, James Gould could only imagine the beauty and warmth of the lands to the south. It was there that he longed to build bridges and lighthouses from his very own designs and plans. His gripping story unfolds as Gould follows his dream to the raw settlement of Bangor on the Penobscot River, St. Simons Island off the coast of Georgia, lawless Spanish East Florida, and back - at last and finally - to St. Simons.
-
-
Re: Wonderful Story
- By Cmorgan on 01-27-23
By: Eugenia Price
-
Belle Cora
- A Novel
- By: Phillip Margulies
- Narrated by: Graham Rowat, Elizabeth Wiley
- Length: 25 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
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.
-
-
excellent
- By Patricia on 05-15-20
-
Twelve Years a Slave
- By: Solomon Northup
- Narrated by: Stephen L. Vernon
- Length: 8 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Twelve Years a Slave is an account of actual events that took place in the life of Solomon Northup, during the pre-Civil War era of the 1840s. It follows the trials and tribulations of an educated African American man that was born into freedom and later kidnapped, taken away from his family, and forced into slavery.
-
-
What a great book!!!
- By Andrew Robbin on 09-07-14
By: Solomon Northup
-
The Prophet
- By: Khalil Gibrán
- Narrated by: Peter Batchelor
- Length: 1 hr and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
World-famous 26 prose poetry fables written in English by the Lebanese-American poet and writer. It was originally published in 1923. It is Gibran's best known work. The Prophet has been translated into over 100 different languages, making it one of the most translated books in history.
-
-
Literally the best book!
- By Amazon Customer on 04-25-20
By: Khalil Gibrán
-
The First Man
- By: Albert Camus
- Narrated by: Jefferson Mays
- Length: 8 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In The First Man, Albert Camus tells the story of Jacques Cormery, a boy who lived a life much like his own. Camus summons up the sights, sounds, and textures of a childhood circumscribed by poverty and a father's death yet redeemed by the austere beauty of Algeria and the boy's attachment to his nearly deaf-mute mother. The result is a moving journey through the lost landscape of youth that also discloses the wellsprings of Camus's aesthetic powers and moral vision.
-
-
Great Narration by Jefferson Mays
- By Sean Patrick Stevens on 07-31-21
By: Albert Camus
-
Black Boy
- By: Richard Wright
- Narrated by: Peter Francis James
- Length: 15 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Richard Wright's powerful and eloquent memoir of his journey from innocence to experience in the Jim Crow South. At once an unashamed confession and a profound indictment, Black Boy is a poignant record of struggle and endurance - a seminal literary work that illuminates our own time. The once controversial, now classic American autobiography measures the brutality and rawness of the Jim Crow South against the sheer desperate will it took to survive as a Black boy. Seventy-five years later, his words continue to reverberate.
-
-
Outstanding
- By Trevin Harvey on 11-11-20
By: Richard Wright
-
Mercy Among the Children
- A Novel
- By: David Adams Richards
- Narrated by: Bernard Clark
- Length: 13 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Sydney Henderson is a truly great man. As a young man, Sydney, believing he has accidentally killed a friend, makes a pact with God, promising never to harm another if the boy's life is spared. In the years that follow, the almost pathologically gentle Sydney holds true to his promise - at terrible cost to himself and his family. Stunningly beautiful and haunting, scenes from this magisterial novel will remain etched in the mind forever.
-
-
Epic story
- By jhar14 on 06-04-22
-
City of Tranquil Light
- A Novel
- By: Bo Caldwell
- Narrated by: Bronson Pinchot
- Length: 9 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Will Kiehn is seemingly destined for life as a humble farmer in the Midwest when, having felt a call from God, he travels to the vast North China Plain in the early twentieth century. There he is surprised by love and weds a strong and determined fellow missionary, Katherine. They soon find themselves witnesses to the crumbling of a more than two-thousand-year-old dynasty that plunges the country into decades of civil war.
-
-
What We're Here For
- By Annette on 10-14-10
By: Bo Caldwell
-
One Hundred Years of Solitude
- By: Gabriel García Márquez, Gregory Rabassa - translator
- Narrated by: John Lee
- Length: 14 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
One of the 20th century's enduring works, One Hundred Years of Solitude is a widely beloved and acclaimed novel known throughout the world and the ultimate achievement in a Nobel Prize-winning career. The novel tells the story of the rise and fall of the mythical town of Macondo through the history of the Buendía family. Rich and brilliant, it is a chronicle of life, death, and the tragicomedy of humankind. In the beautiful, ridiculous, and tawdry story of the Buendía family, one sees all of humanity, just as in the history, myths, growth, and decay of Macondo, one sees all of Latin America.
-
-
What in the heck happened?????
- By Melinda on 02-05-14
By: Gabriel García Márquez, and others
-
Varina
- A Novel
- By: Charles Frazier
- Narrated by: Molly Parker
- Length: 12 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
With her marriage prospects limited, teenage Varina Howell agrees to wed the much-older widower Jefferson Davis, with whom she expects a life of security as a landowner. He instead pursues a career in politics and is eventually appointed president of the Confederacy, placing Varina at the white-hot center of one of the darkest moments in American history - culpable regardless of her intentions. The Confederacy falling, her marriage in tatters, and the country divided, Varina and her children escape Richmond and travel south on their own, now fugitives.
-
-
Read it rather than listen
- By Anonymous on 08-31-18
By: Charles Frazier
-
A Wayside Tavern
- By: Norah Lofts
- Narrated by: Jonathan Keeble
- Length: 15 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A Wayside Tavern tells the story of a Suffolk drinking place from the end of the Roman occupation of Britain, until the present day. The Roman veteran, crippled and left behind, worshipped Mithras, so the place became known as the One Bull and down through the centuries it became a clearing house for contraband, a miniature Hell Fire Club, a fashionable hotel, a mere pub. Across the yard, was the church of St Cerdic, king and martyr, who fought the Danes and was famous for the miracles performed at his shrine.
-
-
An enjoyable tale
- By Gordon on 10-07-11
By: Norah Lofts
-
Slave Life in Georgia
- A Narrative of the Life, Sufferings, and Escape of John Brown, a Fugitive Slave, Now in England
- By: John Brown
- Narrated by: Damian Salandy
- Length: 4 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This account of the life, sufferings, and escape of a fugitive slave was published in London in 1855 by the British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society. It is the autobiography of a simple, sturdy man who spent 30 years as a slave in Virginia, North Carolina, and Georgia.
-
-
Slave Life in Georgia
- By Deedra on 03-27-19
By: John Brown
-
Days Without End
- A Novel
- By: Sebastian Barry
- Narrated by: Aidan Kelly
- Length: 7 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Thomas McNulty, having fled the Great Famine in Ireland and now barely 17 years old, signs up for the US Army in the 1850s and with his brother in arms, John Cole, goes to fight in the Indian Wars - against the Sioux and the Yurok - and, ultimately, in the Civil War. Orphans of terrible hardships themselves, they find these days to be vivid and alive, despite the horrors they see and are complicit in. Moving from the plains of Wyoming to Tennessee, Sebastian Barry's latest work is a masterpiece of atmosphere and language.
-
-
This is about love of two men
- By KEITH on 08-26-17
By: Sebastian Barry
-
Annie Dunne
- By: Sebastian Barry
- Narrated by: Caroline Lennon
- Length: 7 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It is 1959 in Wicklow, Ireland, and Annie and her cousin Sarah are living and working together to keep Sarah’s small farm running. Suddenly, Annie’s young niece and nephew are left in their care. Unprepared for the chaos that two children inevitably bring, but nervously excited nonetheless, Annie finds the interruption of her normal life and her last chance at happiness complicated further by the attention being paid to Sarah by a local man with his eye on the farm.
-
-
Splendid
- By Shady on 06-21-23
By: Sebastian Barry
-
Freedom Road
- By: Howard Fast
- Narrated by: Norman Dietz
- Length: 9 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It was everywhere. You couldn’t talk about the revolution without using the word freedom in the same breath. But Gideon Jackson knew that freedom meant something different if your skin was black. Fast’s fictional account of the post Civil War era takes us into the life of Gideon Jackson, a black man, newly freed, and determined to make a difference.
-
-
Great Story, Decent Narrator
- By Keon Gardner on 12-04-17
By: Howard Fast
-
Pale Horse, Pale Rider
- Three Short Novels
- By: Katherine Anne Porter
- Narrated by: Chelsea Stephens
- Length: 6 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
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.
-
-
Some of the most brilliant prose ever written
- By Anonymous User on 03-21-23
-
Painting the Light
- A Novel
- By: Sally Cabot Gunning
- Narrated by: Eva Kaminsky
- Length: 10 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Martha’s Vineyard, 1898. In her first life, Ida Russell had been a painter. Five years ago, she had confidently walked the halls of Boston’s renowned Museum School, enrolling in art courses that were once deemed “unthinkable” for women to take and showing a budding talent for watercolors. But no more. Ida Russell is now Ida Pease, resident of a seaside farm on Vineyard Haven and wife to Ezra, a once-charming man who has become an inattentive and altogether unreliable husband.
-
-
Slow the narrator to speed 8 and it’s beautifully read
- By Storytellersrus on 04-21-22
-
Under the Tulip Tree
- By: Michelle Shocklee
- Narrated by: Sarah Zimmerman
- Length: 9 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Sixteen-year-old Lorena Leland’s dreams of a rich and fulfilling life as a writer are dashed when the stock market crashes in 1929. Seven years into the Great Depression, Rena’s banker father has retreated into the bottle, her sister is married to a lazy charlatan and gambler, and Rena is an unemployed newspaper reporter. Eager for any writing job, Rena accepts a position interviewing former slaves for the Federal Writers’ Project. There, she meets Frankie Washington, a 101-year-old woman whose honest yet tragic past captivates Rena.
-
-
Wonderful!
- By Becky on 12-03-20
People who viewed this also viewed...
-
Mercury Pictures Presents
- A Novel
- By: Anthony Marra
- Narrated by: Carlotta Brentan
- Length: 14 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Like many before her, Maria Lagana has come to Hollywood to outrun her past. Born in Rome, where every Sunday her father took her to the cinema instead of church, Maria immigrates with her mother to Los Angeles after a childhood transgression leads to her father’s arrest.
-
-
As the NYT review says, a gorgeous book
- By fmg on 08-14-22
By: Anthony Marra
-
Daughters of the Dust
- A Gullah-Geechee Novel
- By: Julie Dash
- Narrated by: Bahni Turpin
- Length: 15 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Drawing from the magical world of her iconic Sundance award-winning film, Julie Dash’s stand-alone novel tells another rich, historical tale of the Gullah-Geechee people: a multigenerational story about a Brooklyn College anthropology student who finds an unexpected homecoming when she heads to the South Carolina Sea Islands to study her ancestors.
-
-
My BFF Bahni...
- By Lillian Collins on 12-31-22
By: Julie Dash
-
The Romantic
- A Novel
- By: William Boyd
- Narrated by: Kobna Holdbrook-Smith
- Length: 17 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From the award-winning, internationally best-selling author, a beguiling romp of a novel, at once intimate and panoramic, about the adventures and misadventures of a nineteenth-century everyman.
-
-
Read the Author's Note first, not in the audiobook
- By Paul Haahr on 12-02-23
By: William Boyd
-
Our Kind of People
- By: Carol Wallace
- Narrated by: Suzanne Barbetta
- Length: 11 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Helen Wilcox has one desire: to successfully launch her daughters into society. From the upper crust herself, Helen's unconventional--if happy--marriage has made the girls' social position precarious. Then her husband gambles the family fortunes on an elevated railroad that he claims will transform the face of the city and the way the people of New York live, but will it ruin the Wilcoxes first? As daughters Jemima and Alice navigate the rise and fall of their family--each is forced to re-examine who she is, and even who she is meant to love.
-
-
Listened to it three times
- By Antoinette on 09-30-23
By: Carol Wallace
-
Mademoiselle Revolution
- By: Zoe Sivak
- Narrated by: Imani Jade Powers
- Length: 14 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Sylvie de Rosiers, as the daughter of a rich planter and an enslaved woman, enjoys the comforts of a lady in 1791 Saint-Domingue society. But while she was born to privilege, she was never fully accepted by island elites. After a violent rebellion begins the Haitian Revolution, Sylvie and her brother leave their family and old lives behind to flee unwittingly into another uprising—in austere and radical Paris.
-
-
A New View
- By Syd Young on 08-22-22
By: Zoe Sivak
-
MacArthur Park
- A Novel
- By: Judith Freeman
- Narrated by: Eva Kaminsky
- Length: 14 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Jolene and Verna share complicated ties that have crystallized over time. Beginning when they were girls discovering their needs and desires, their ongoing stories have been inextricably linked. But when Verna marries Vincent, Jolene’s ex-husband, their paths may have finally, permanently diverged.
-
-
An Outstanding Performance by Writer and Narrator
- By Bax on 12-11-21
By: Judith Freeman
-
Mercury Pictures Presents
- A Novel
- By: Anthony Marra
- Narrated by: Carlotta Brentan
- Length: 14 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Like many before her, Maria Lagana has come to Hollywood to outrun her past. Born in Rome, where every Sunday her father took her to the cinema instead of church, Maria immigrates with her mother to Los Angeles after a childhood transgression leads to her father’s arrest.
-
-
As the NYT review says, a gorgeous book
- By fmg on 08-14-22
By: Anthony Marra
-
Daughters of the Dust
- A Gullah-Geechee Novel
- By: Julie Dash
- Narrated by: Bahni Turpin
- Length: 15 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Drawing from the magical world of her iconic Sundance award-winning film, Julie Dash’s stand-alone novel tells another rich, historical tale of the Gullah-Geechee people: a multigenerational story about a Brooklyn College anthropology student who finds an unexpected homecoming when she heads to the South Carolina Sea Islands to study her ancestors.
-
-
My BFF Bahni...
- By Lillian Collins on 12-31-22
By: Julie Dash
-
The Romantic
- A Novel
- By: William Boyd
- Narrated by: Kobna Holdbrook-Smith
- Length: 17 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From the award-winning, internationally best-selling author, a beguiling romp of a novel, at once intimate and panoramic, about the adventures and misadventures of a nineteenth-century everyman.
-
-
Read the Author's Note first, not in the audiobook
- By Paul Haahr on 12-02-23
By: William Boyd
-
Our Kind of People
- By: Carol Wallace
- Narrated by: Suzanne Barbetta
- Length: 11 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Helen Wilcox has one desire: to successfully launch her daughters into society. From the upper crust herself, Helen's unconventional--if happy--marriage has made the girls' social position precarious. Then her husband gambles the family fortunes on an elevated railroad that he claims will transform the face of the city and the way the people of New York live, but will it ruin the Wilcoxes first? As daughters Jemima and Alice navigate the rise and fall of their family--each is forced to re-examine who she is, and even who she is meant to love.
-
-
Listened to it three times
- By Antoinette on 09-30-23
By: Carol Wallace
-
Mademoiselle Revolution
- By: Zoe Sivak
- Narrated by: Imani Jade Powers
- Length: 14 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Sylvie de Rosiers, as the daughter of a rich planter and an enslaved woman, enjoys the comforts of a lady in 1791 Saint-Domingue society. But while she was born to privilege, she was never fully accepted by island elites. After a violent rebellion begins the Haitian Revolution, Sylvie and her brother leave their family and old lives behind to flee unwittingly into another uprising—in austere and radical Paris.
-
-
A New View
- By Syd Young on 08-22-22
By: Zoe Sivak
-
MacArthur Park
- A Novel
- By: Judith Freeman
- Narrated by: Eva Kaminsky
- Length: 14 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Jolene and Verna share complicated ties that have crystallized over time. Beginning when they were girls discovering their needs and desires, their ongoing stories have been inextricably linked. But when Verna marries Vincent, Jolene’s ex-husband, their paths may have finally, permanently diverged.
-
-
An Outstanding Performance by Writer and Narrator
- By Bax on 12-11-21
By: Judith Freeman
-
Gertrude and Claudius
- A Novel
- By: John Updike
- Narrated by: John Lee
- Length: 6 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Gertrude and Claudius are the "villains" of Hamlet: he the killer of Hamlet’s father and usurper of the Danish throne; she his lusty consort, who marries Claudius before her late husband’s body is cold. But in this imaginative "prequel" to the play, John Updike makes a case for the royal couple that Shakespeare only hinted at. Gertrude and Claudius are seen afresh against a background of fond intentions and family dysfunction, on a stage darkened by the ominous shadow of a sullen, erratic, disaffected prince.
By: John Updike
-
Strangers I Know
- A Novel
- By: Claudia Durastanti
- Narrated by: Lisa Flanagan
- Length: 6 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Descriptive copy is not yet available from the publisher.
-
-
Boring
- By lin on 09-18-24
-
Queens of London
- By: Heather Webb
- Narrated by: Amy Scanlon
- Length: 11 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
1925. LONDON. When Alice Diamond, a.k.a. “Diamond Annie,” is elected the queen of the Forty Elephants, she’s determined to take the all-girl gang to new heights. She’s ambitious, tough as nails, and a brilliant mastermind with a plan to create a dynasty the likes of which no one has ever seen. Alice demands absolute loyalty from her “family”—it’s how she's always kept the cops in line. Too bad she’s now the target for one of Britain’s first policewomen.
-
-
Don't worry about the dog!
- By Kristyn Rose on 04-11-24
By: Heather Webb
-
The Majority
- A Novel
- By: Elizabeth L. Silver
- Narrated by: Sierra Prasada
- Length: 11 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Half of the United States is waiting for Justice Sylvia Olin Bernstein to die. The other half is praying for her to hold on. At 83, “the contemptuous S.O.B.” doesn’t have much time left. What she has is a story, one she has wrested from the grip of history to tell herself—of how she rose to her historic position on the Supreme Court, and the barriers she broke along the way.
-
-
Unusual story - what makes a supreme court justice
- By Angela on 07-14-23
-
Old School
- By: Tobias Wolff
- Narrated by: Dan Cashman
- Length: 6 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Determined to fit in at his New England prep school, the narrator has learned to mimic the bearing and manners of his adoptive tribe while concealing as much as possible about himself. His final year, however, unravels everything he’s achieved and steers his destiny in directions no one could have predicted.
-
-
listen to this
- By Surf on 11-18-20
By: Tobias Wolff
-
Are We There Yet?
- By: Kathleen West
- Narrated by: Thérèse Plummer
- Length: 10 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Alice Sullivan feels like she’s finally found her groove in middle age, but it only takes one moment for her perfectly curated life to unravel. On the same day she learns her daughter is struggling in second grade, a call from her son’s school accusing him of bullying throws Alice into a tailspin.
-
-
So much fun
- By Pink Amy on 03-23-22
By: Kathleen West
-
Kaleidoscope
- A Novel
- By: Cecily Wong
- Narrated by: Courtney Lin, Dan Bittner
- Length: 8 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Morgan and Riley Brighton are joint heirs to Kaleidoscope: a glittering, ‘global bohemian’ shopping empire—created in sleepy Oregon and catapulted into haute New York—sourcing luxury goods from around the world. Morgan, statuesque beauty and Kaleidoscope’s talented designer, is adored by all, especially by the Brighton parents. Yet no one loves her more than Riley, whose shy and adventurous spirit is exalted by her sister.
-
-
What happens when the glue is gone?
- By w.l. on 10-21-22
By: Cecily Wong
-
The Orphan's Song
- By: Lauren Kate
- Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell
- Length: 11 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Venice, 1736. When fate brings Violetta and Mino together on the roof of the Hospital of the Incurables, they form a connection that will change their lives forever. Both are orphans at the Incurables, dreaming of escape. But when the resident Maestro notices Violetta's voice, she is selected for the Incurables' world famous coro, and must sign an oath never to sing beyond its church doors. After a declaration of love ends in heartbreak, Mino flees the Incurables in search of his family. Venice is full of secrets, and Mino is certain one will lead to his long-lost mother.
-
-
Fate really has a sense of humor!
- By Kay on 07-22-19
By: Lauren Kate
-
A Song Everlasting
- A Novel
- By: Ha Jin
- Narrated by: Feodor Chin
- Length: 11 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
At the end of a US tour with his state-supported choir, popular singer Yao Tian takes a private gig in New York to pick up some extra cash for his daughter’s tuition fund, but the consequences of his choice spiral out of control. On his return to China, Tian is informed that the sponsors of the event were supporters of Taiwan’s secession, and that he must deliver a formal self-criticism. When he is asked to forfeit his passport to his employer, Tian impulsively decides instead to return to New York to protest the government’s threat to his artistic integrity.
-
-
Wonderful Story
- By Amazon Customer on 10-07-22
By: Ha Jin
-
Heaven and Earth
- A Novel
- By: Paolo Giordano, Anne Milano Appel - translator
- Narrated by: Jane McDowell
- Length: 14 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Every summer Teresa follows her father to his childhood home in Puglia, down in the heel of Italy, a land of relentless, shimmering heat. Everything changes the summer she meets the three boys who live on the farm next door: Nicola, Tommaso, and Bern - the man Teresa will love for the rest of her life. Raised like brothers on a farm that feels to Teresa almost suspended in time, the three boys share a complex, intimate, and seemingly unassailable bond. But there is resentment underneath the surface of that strange brotherhood, a twisted kind of love that protects a dark secret.
-
-
Definitely not a mystery
- By Mark D on 07-23-20
By: Paolo Giordano, and others
-
The Weight of a Piano
- A novel
- By: Chris Cander
- Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell
- Length: 9 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1962, in the Soviet Union, eight-year-old Katya is bequeathed what will become the love of her life: a Blüthner piano, on which she discovers an enriching passion for music. Yet after she marries, her husband insists the family emigrate to America - and loses her piano in the process. In 2012, in Bakersfield, California, 26-year-old Clara Lundy is burdened by the last gift her father gave her before he and her mother died in a terrible house fire: a Blüthner upright she has never learned to play. In sudden frustration, she decides to sell it.
-
-
The Key to Enjoying this Book
- By Sherry Day Foster on 03-09-19
By: Chris Cander
-
Storyteller
- By: Leslie Marmon Silko
- Narrated by: Tara Gatewood
- Length: 6 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Leslie Marmon Silko's groundbreaking book Storyteller, first published in 1981, blends original short stories and poetry influenced by the traditional oral tales that she heard growing up on the Laguna Pueblo in New Mexico with autobiographical passages, folktales, family memories, and photographs. As she mixes traditional and Western literary genres, Silko examines themes of memory, alienation, power, and identity; communicates Native American notions regarding time, nature, and spirituality; and explores how stories and storytelling shape people and communities.
-
-
excitement unrequited
- By susanneb on 08-08-23
What listeners say about The Magic Kingdom
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Timothy P. Kelly
- 09-22-23
Not great
Overall the story was somewhat interesting, but I thought it petered out in the end without much of a finish. It seemed to drone on and on. I did not enjoy the readers voice.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- moviegoernotbuff
- 02-05-23
Rx for Readers Who Want to Understand Cults
Can a utopian society exist? This book intrigued me because it was about a cult that lived well and happily.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Hannah J Bean
- 08-28-23
Slowwww
This ended up being a thought provoking story, but wowzerz it took a long time to get there. As the story went along you got just enough to hang on.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Carolyn hicks
- 01-22-23
Such a unique story
I was fascinated by this stor of a small piece of history! One man’s account of coming of age and how it shaped his life.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- bob
- 01-18-23
A story
I love a good story and this is just that. Well read. Lush with details, sights and sounds
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Reem
- 05-31-23
From Shaker to Magic..
This book is an interesting memoir of Harley Mann, who felt responsible for the fall of New Bethany, a shaker community in Florida, and the rise of Walt Disney World in its place. He recorded his memories when he was older in a reel to reel like manner, mostly about his teenage years living in New Bethany, his admiration of his mentor Elder John, and his love obsession with Sadie Pratt living nearby. A big dilemma hits them later which involves him and shakes the community, and eventually crumbles.
This was well-written, but the story is boring for the most part. In the end it all came together.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- jack bob
- 11-28-22
The voice will put you to sleep
Really slow - the narration was terrible - listening to an old man’s voice for hours was not enjoyable- story line thin
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Nana Landgraf
- 12-12-22
Rewarding tale!
This book was fascinating! I lived in Shaker Heights 1959-2017 and now live only a couple of miles away, in Cleveland. Shaker Heights has the Shaker Historical Society, of which I am a longtime member. My heart is still in Shaker Heights, so I can say we are proud of our Shaker heritage, presented so graphically in a Florida setting by author Russell Banks. Shakers had virtues and vices, including shunning, according to Mr. Banks. I never heard of our North Union Shakers doing shunning, but maybe the record is suppressed. Shaker Heights is very different from the Shakers. They wouldn’t approve of us. I also know Florida, but not the way I know local Shaker history, and I’ve never been tempted to visit Disney’s Florida establishment. Mr. Banks, thank you for this book!
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Sylvia Pinegar
- 01-02-23
Dry account of a shaker love story
*Spoiler alert *
Despite the name, this story is a very dry and detailed love of the unique life of a Shaker man and his forbidden obsession with another woman that ultimately led to his demise. There is all of maybe 5 minutes of discussion about the Magic Kingdom and its conception, which was disappointing.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Tara
- 01-31-23
beautiful
enjoyed this story so much. maybe because I'm a Florida native, but a sweet, heartbreaking story
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!