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The Natural
- A Novel
- Narrated by: Fred Berman
- Length: 7 hrs and 5 mins
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Publisher's summary
Introduction by Kevin Baker
The Natural, Bernard Malamud's first novel, published in 1952, is also the first - and some would say still the best - novel ever written about baseball. In it Malamud, usually appreciated for his unerring portrayals of postwar Jewish life, took on very different material - the story of a superbly gifted "natural" at play in the fields of the old daylight baseball era - and invested it with the hardscrabble poetry, at once grand and altogether believable, that runs through all his best work.
Four decades later, Alfred Kazin's comment still holds true: "Malamud has done something which - now that he has done it! - looks as if we have been waiting for it all our lives. He has really raised the whole passion and craziness and fanaticism of baseball as a popular spectacle to its ordained place in mythology."
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A Breath of Fresh Air
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By: Elyse Singleton
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The Best Horror of the Year, Volume 4
- By: Ellen Datlow - author/editor, Stephen King, Peter Straub
- Narrated by: Meredith Mitchell, Rebecca Mitchell, Michael Healy, and others
- Length: 16 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
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With tales from Laird Barron, Stephen King, John Langan, Peter Straub, and many others, and featuring Datlow’s comprehensive overview of the year in horror, now, more than ever, The Best Horror of the Year provides the petrifying horror fiction readers have come to expect - and enjoy.
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Only a few decent stories in this bunch.
- By Jerry on 12-06-14
By: Ellen Datlow - author/editor, and others
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Stories
- All-New Tales
- By: Neil Gaiman - author/editor, Al Sarrantonio - editor, Joe Hill, and others
- Narrated by: Anne Bobby, Jonathan Davis, Katherine Kellgren, and others
- Length: 18 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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The best stories pull readers in and keep them turning the pages, eager to discover more—to find the answer to the question: "And then what happened?" The true hallmark of great literature is great imagination, and as Neil Gaiman and Al Sarrantonio prove with this outstanding collection, when it comes to great fiction, all genres are equal.
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Something for Everyone
- By Nicole on 05-24-17
By: Neil Gaiman - author/editor, and others
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The October Country
- By: Ray Bradbury
- Narrated by: David Aaron Baker
- Length: 10 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
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Haunting, harrowing, and downright horrifying, this classic collection from the modern master of the fantastic features: "The Small Assassin": a fine, healthy baby boy was the new mother's dream come true - or her nightmare.... "The Emissary": the faithful dog was the sick boy's only connection with the world outside - and beyond.... "The Wonderful Death of Dudley Stone": a most remarkable case of murder - the deceased was delighted! And more!
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The October Country
- By steven richard pohl on 09-17-19
By: Ray Bradbury
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The Brass Cupcake: A Novel
- By: John D. MacDonald
- Narrated by: Richard Ferrone
- Length: 7 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
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A classic novel by John D. MacDonald with an exclusive introduction written and read by Dean Koontz. Ex-cop Cliff Bartells might be the last honest man in Florence City, Florida. After quitting the force over a crisis of conscience, he takes a job at an insurance company buying back stolen jewelry. Cliff is focused on keeping the bottom line down and staying out of the spotlight.But when an affluent tourist from Boston is murdered over a hefty collection of jewelry, Cliff finds himself wrapped up in a case that’s making national headlines.
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Good Social History ...
- By Montana on 05-14-17
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Roadside Picnic
- By: Arkady Strugatsky, Boris Strugatsky, Olena Bormashenko - translator
- Narrated by: Robert Forster
- Length: 7 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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Red Schuhart is a stalker, one of those young rebels who are compelled, in spite of extreme danger, to venture illegally into the Zone to collect the mysterious artifacts that the alien visitors left scattered around. His life is dominated by the place and the thriving black market in the alien products. But when he and his friend Kirill go into the Zone together to pick up a "full empty", something goes wrong.
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Gritty, resonant sci-fi classic
- By Ryan on 02-14-13
By: Arkady Strugatsky, and others
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Lost Boy
- By: Tim Green
- Narrated by: Tim Green
- Length: 7 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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It's always been just Ryder and his mom. But on the way home from Ryder's baseball practice, everything comes to a halt. An accident sends his mom to the hospital, and now she is fighting for her life. So Ryder goes on a search to find his father, determined to help pay for the expensive operation to save his mother's life. But with only a signed baseball and a letter as his clues, and the help of his next-door neighbor and a New York City firefighter, will everything fall into place in time, or will Ryder become a lost boy forever?
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Great story!!!
- By Nina Queen on 09-23-21
By: Tim Green
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How Like a God
- By: Brenda W. Clough
- Narrated by: Bronson Pinchot
- Length: 8 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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What would it be like, to get absolute power? Would you wear a cape and fight crime? Rule the planet? Or perhaps you would be like Rob Lewis, and watch your world collapse around you. Does absolute power corrupt absolutely? Rob is going to find out.
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At one point the main character rapes at 13 year old girl
- By Richard Davis on 05-29-21
By: Brenda W. Clough
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Netherland
- By: Joseph O'Neill
- Narrated by: Jefferson Mays
- Length: 8 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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Alone and un-tethered, feeling lost in the country he had come to regard as home, Hans stumbles upon the vibrant New York subculture of cricket, where he revisits his lost childhood and, thanks to a friendship with a charismatic and charming Trinidadian named Chuck Ramkissoon, begins to reconnect with his life and his adopted country. Ramkissoon, a Gatsby-like figure who is part idealist and part operator, introduces Hans to an "other" New York populated by immigrants and strivers of every race and nationality.
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Get Your Post-Colonial Gatsby ON!
- By Darwin8u on 04-13-12
By: Joseph O'Neill
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A Death in Kitchawank, and Other Stories
- By: T. C. Boyle
- Narrated by: T. C. Boyle
- Length: 9 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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Few authors write with such sheer love of story and language as T. C. Boyle, and that is nowhere more evident than in his inventive, wickedly funny, and always entertaining short stories. Here are 14 new tales previously unpublished in book form. By turns mythic and realistic, farcical and tragic, ironic and moving, Boyle's stories have mapped a wide range of human emotions. The stories here reflect his maturing themes.
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Mixed Bag
- By AuntGert on 09-22-20
By: T. C. Boyle
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The Warriors
- By: Sol Yurick
- Narrated by: Joel Richards
- Length: 7 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
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The basis for the cult-classic film The Warriors chronicles one New York City gang's nocturnal journey through the seedy, dangerous subways and city streets of the 1960s. Every gang in the city meets on a sweltering July 4 night in a Bronx park for a peace rally. The crowd of miscreants turns violent after a prominent gang leader is killed and chaos prevails over the attempt at order. The Warriors follows the Dominators trying to make their way back to their home territory without being killed.
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BEWARE: NOTHING like the movie!
- By Tony L on 03-31-20
By: Sol Yurick
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Make Something Up
- Stories You Can't Unread
- By: Chuck Palahniuk
- Narrated by: Chuck Palahniuk, Scott Sowers, Rich Orlow, and others
- Length: 11 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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For years Chuck Palahniuk has reserved his best storytelling for his readings, often choosing to read a new short story instead of whatever novel he is supposed to be promoting. Make Something Up compiles these previously unpublished tales for the very first time, plus the Byliner social media insta-classic "Phoenix" and Palahniuk's most notable pieces from Playboy.
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Plenty of shock, just not enough Palahniuk awe
- By Darwin8u on 06-10-15
By: Chuck Palahniuk
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In Ashkenazi Jewish folklore, a golem is a humanoid being created out of mud or clay and animated through secret prayers. Its sole purpose is to defend the Jewish people against the immediate threat of violence. It is always a rabbi who makes a golem, and always in a time of crisis. But Len Bronstein is no rabbi—he’s a Brooklyn art teacher who steals a large quantity of clay from his school, gets extremely stoned, and manages to bring his creation to life despite knowing little about Judaism and even less about golems.
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Could not finish
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The Natural
- How to Effortlessly Attract the Women You Want
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Whether you're looking to play the field or meet that one special girl, world-renowned pickup artist Richard La Ruina has got you covered. In The Natural, he reveals his blueprint for attracting and keeping the kinds of women most men only dream of. It doesn't matter what you look like or how much you make; when you use these methods, it's a whole new game - and you have the unfair advantage.
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mystery method or the game for dummies.
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In December 1935, Zdeněk Koubek, one of the most famous sprinters in European women’s sports, declared he was now living as a man. Around the same time, the celebrated British field athlete Mark Weston, also assigned female at birth, announced that he, too, was a man. Periodicals and radio programs across the world carried the news; both became global celebrities. A few decades later, they were all but forgotten. In The Other Olympians, Michael Waters uncovers, for the first time, the gripping true stories of Koubek, Weston, and other pioneering trans and intersex athletes from their era.
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The swimmers are unknown to one another except through their private routines (slow lane, medium lane, fast lane) and the solace each takes in their morning or afternoon laps. But when a crack appears at the bottom of the pool, they are cast out into an unforgiving world without comfort or relief.
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The story opens in 1906 in New Rochelle, New York, at the home of an affluent American family. One lazy Sunday afternoon, the famous escape artist Harry Houdini swerves his car into a telephone pole outside their house. And almost magically, the line between fantasy and historical fact, between real and imaginary characters, disappears.
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too good for words
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The Netanyahus
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Corbin College, not quite upstate New York, winter 1959-1960: Ruben Blum, a Jewish historian—but not an historian of the Jews—is co-opted onto a hiring committee to review the application of an exiled Israeli scholar specializing in the Spanish Inquisition. When Benzion Netanyahu shows up for an interview, family unexpectedly in tow, Blum plays the reluctant host to guests who proceed to lay waste to his American complacencies. Mixing fiction with nonfiction, the campus novel with the lecture, The Netanyahus is a wildly inventive comedy of blending, identity, and politics.
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Phillip Roth would certainly listen!
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What listeners say about The Natural
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Amazon Customer
- 08-29-22
OY! I LIKED THE MOVIE BETTER!
Wow, did this book surprise me! I have been a fan of Bernard Malamud since--well, since I was like eight years old and discovered my love affair with baseball! The elementary school I attended had a small school library, and there was a book of baseball short stories that included (at least) one of Malamud's. Years later, I saw "The Natural" with Robert Redford and Glenn Close, and loved the story! (This is one of the perhaps dozen movies that I have seen in my life that I will watch again no matter when it comes on, unless my wife is home and in possession of the remote!). So...I was pretty excited to read "The Natural," and with props to Mr. M., it's a great book and totally well-written; but...nothing like the movie story version (especially the end), and for that reason, I hated it. In the book, "Roy" ends up being an amoral shell of a man who seems only interested in his own narcissism related to the "heroic legacy" he'll leave to the game. I don't want to spoil the ending for anyone, but think 180-out of how the movie leaves him (and Iris) in the happy-ending version. Oy, so disappointed in Roy.
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- Damian
- 05-21-23
Depressing…
…. For any number of reasons primarily the movie. Anyone who has seen Robert Redford in the cinematic “the natural“ – and who hasn’t? – Will get a big dose of gloom out of the literary version. Like other reviewers have remarked… The movie is much better… That’s a rare occurrence. “TheGreatEscape“, “little big man“ are only a few examples that come to mind when the movie outstrips the book… Perhaps “the Godfather“ is another. But certainly anyone who’s ever been uplifted by Robert Redford‘s elegant performance… And feel good pathos will walk away from the authors version with a heavy heart. Naturally, one has to take his hat off to the original… but even that seems to borrow just a little too much from actual history. The narration was mediocre… It’s a short lesson, but spare yourself the disappointment.
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- Stephen St Pierre
- 06-22-22
loved the premise
while very different than the movie(which was fine) There are periods of this book that go off the rails of any semblance of reality. well read, but the story which had its of promise had me losing interest throughout.
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- michael
- 01-21-23
Movie was better
Very different story than the movie. One of the few instances where the movie is better than the book. The Hobbs character isn’t even very likable in the book. Overall, the book was a good listen if for no other reason than to experience Malamud’s original version.
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- Anonymous User
- 06-01-23
Sad and unreal
At times, a story containing components of the beauty of the love of the game, mixed with the life story of a tragic character, that sadly and somewhat unrealistically, time, and again, makes major errors in judgment, indicating his apparent in ability to learn from experience.
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- WALLACE J PLUTA
- 06-10-23
Liked the movie better
It's a good book, but if you've seen the movie you will be a little disappointed. I couldn't separate the way Redford played Hobbs and how Hobbs is in the book is really not the same character.
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- BookReader
- 12-02-20
The Natural
Most people who read this book are drawn to it by seeing the movie first, right? Maybe. If you're like me, you're disappointed.
The character of Roy Hobbs is much more of a bumpkin, not the charismatic character portrayed in the movie. The death of his father, the love interest of his boyhood, the son? Nope, no part of this story. Roy does get shot, but years later falls for the fem-fatalé. The silver bullet that near ends Roy's life, let alone career, isn't even mentioned. He does wind up in the hospital, but for stress/exhaustion, something equally mundane. The rest of the story, Pop, Wonderboy, throwing a game, all adheres to the story arc of the movie, except for the ending. No spoilers, but *sniff*, it is nowhere near as thrilling. Not even close.
Yet, the actual field action of "baseball" - good stuff!
The movie is considerably more uplifting. Considerably.
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- John Knaus
- 09-07-21
disappointed
I can't believe I'm saying this, but if you love the movie, the natural, like I did, I would not read this book. The book does not have any real issues that it deals well with philosophically, it's baseball issues are old and hard to relate with, and worst of all, has characters that do not resound.
Call me old fashioned, but I think the reader deserves a happy ending to such a pedantic story.
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- KellysHero718
- 05-11-21
A Dark, Dark Hero
This is a classic example of a book being so, so much better than the movie. There is some great baseball, on and off the field, but the story belongs to Hobbs, a dark, deeply disturbed disaster of a human being. A great story.
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- Mark
- 08-22-21
Best last hour of a baseball novel ever
The story of a hero and tragedy. So much of a deeper story than the movie. Absolutely terrific writing and Emotionally committed performance. Loved it.
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