-
The Starting Gate
- A Cocktail of Working, Drinking, Family and Zen
- Narrated by: Paul Mullin
- Length: 6 hrs and 52 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
![Prime logo](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/G/01/Audible/Homestead/Prime_Logo_RGB.png)
Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Buy for $19.95
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
Listeners also enjoyed...
-
Dave Hill Doesn't Live Here Anymore
- By: Dave Hill
- Narrated by: Dave Hill
- Length: 6 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
With his signature matter-of-fact humor, comedian and musician Dave Hill explores his increasingly close relationship with his recently widowed father in a series of painfully funny essays you will want to listen to again and again by the fire, at the beach, in a truck stop men's room, or just about anywhere. It's your call, really.
-
-
A delightful wandering memoir
- By evanblair on 05-02-24
By: Dave Hill
-
11-22-63
- A Novel
- By: Stephen King
- Narrated by: Craig Wasson
- Length: 30 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
On November 22, 1963, three shots rang out in Dallas, President Kennedy died, and the world changed. What if you could change it back? In this brilliantly conceived tour de force, Stephen King - who has absorbed the social, political, and popular culture of his generation more imaginatively and thoroughly than any other writer - takes listeners on an incredible journey into the past and the possibility of altering it.
-
-
I Owe Stephen King An Apology
- By Kelly - Write Well Academy on 04-16-12
By: Stephen King
-
A Life in Parts
- By: Bryan Cranston
- Narrated by: Bryan Cranston
- Length: 8 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Bryan Cranston landed his first role at seven, when his father, a struggling actor and director, cast him in a United Way commercial. Soon Bryan was haunting the local movie theater, memorizing and reenacting favorite scenes with his older brother. Acting was clearly the boy's destiny - until one day his father disappeared. Suddenly destiny took a backseat to survival. Seeking something more stable, perhaps subconsciously trying to distance himself from his absent father, Cranston decided on a career in law enforcement.
-
-
They're all good parts.
- By Shopsfromeverywhere on 10-23-16
By: Bryan Cranston
-
Life of the Party
- Stories of a Perpetual Man-Child
- By: Bert Kreischer
- Narrated by: Bert Kreischer
- Length: 5 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Bert Kreischer doesn't know how to say "no." If he did, he wouldn't have gotten himself mixed up with a group of Russian mobsters on a class trip to Moscow, earning him his nickname: "The Machine." He wouldn't have wrestled with a bear or swum with sharks on national television. He wouldn't have (possibly) smoked PCP with a star of Saturday Night Live. And he wouldn't have been named the Number One Partier in the Nation by Rolling Stone, inspired the movie National Lampoon's Van Wilder, or performed standup to sellout crowds across the country.
-
-
Fart Chrysler
- By Ryan Bonifay on 05-23-17
By: Bert Kreischer
-
The Bazaar of Bad Dreams
- Stories
- By: Stephen King
- Narrated by: Stephen King, Dylan Baker, Brooke Bloom, and others
- Length: 20 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A master storyteller at his best - the O. Henry Prize winner Stephen King delivers a generous collection of stories, several of them brand-new, featuring revelatory autobiographical comments on when, why, and how he came to write (or rewrite) each story. Magnificent, eerie, utterly compelling, these stories comprise one of King's finest gifts to his constant fan. "I made them especially for you," says King. "Feel free to examine them, but please be careful. The best of them have teeth."
-
-
HE'S A CUP OF COFFEE
- By Jim "The Impatient" on 12-10-15
By: Stephen King
-
Failure Is an Option
- An Attempted Memoir
- By: H. Jon Benjamin
- Narrated by: H. Jon Benjamin
- Length: 4 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
While he's not quite a household name, most people would consider H. Jon Benjamin, the voice-actor star of Archer and Bob's Burgers (and a sentient can of mixed vegetables in 2015's Wet Hot American Summer) a comedy show business success. But he'd like to remind everyone that as great as success can be, failure is also an option. In a hilarious, self-deprecating memoir, Jon lays out some of his many failures in all areas of life, from Work ("wherein I'm unable to deliver a sizzling fajita") to Family ("wherein a trip to PF Chang's fractures a family").
-
-
No joke, This book helped my marriage
- By Michelle on 05-07-18
By: H. Jon Benjamin
-
Dave Hill Doesn't Live Here Anymore
- By: Dave Hill
- Narrated by: Dave Hill
- Length: 6 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
With his signature matter-of-fact humor, comedian and musician Dave Hill explores his increasingly close relationship with his recently widowed father in a series of painfully funny essays you will want to listen to again and again by the fire, at the beach, in a truck stop men's room, or just about anywhere. It's your call, really.
-
-
A delightful wandering memoir
- By evanblair on 05-02-24
By: Dave Hill
-
11-22-63
- A Novel
- By: Stephen King
- Narrated by: Craig Wasson
- Length: 30 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
On November 22, 1963, three shots rang out in Dallas, President Kennedy died, and the world changed. What if you could change it back? In this brilliantly conceived tour de force, Stephen King - who has absorbed the social, political, and popular culture of his generation more imaginatively and thoroughly than any other writer - takes listeners on an incredible journey into the past and the possibility of altering it.
-
-
I Owe Stephen King An Apology
- By Kelly - Write Well Academy on 04-16-12
By: Stephen King
-
A Life in Parts
- By: Bryan Cranston
- Narrated by: Bryan Cranston
- Length: 8 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Bryan Cranston landed his first role at seven, when his father, a struggling actor and director, cast him in a United Way commercial. Soon Bryan was haunting the local movie theater, memorizing and reenacting favorite scenes with his older brother. Acting was clearly the boy's destiny - until one day his father disappeared. Suddenly destiny took a backseat to survival. Seeking something more stable, perhaps subconsciously trying to distance himself from his absent father, Cranston decided on a career in law enforcement.
-
-
They're all good parts.
- By Shopsfromeverywhere on 10-23-16
By: Bryan Cranston
-
Life of the Party
- Stories of a Perpetual Man-Child
- By: Bert Kreischer
- Narrated by: Bert Kreischer
- Length: 5 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Bert Kreischer doesn't know how to say "no." If he did, he wouldn't have gotten himself mixed up with a group of Russian mobsters on a class trip to Moscow, earning him his nickname: "The Machine." He wouldn't have wrestled with a bear or swum with sharks on national television. He wouldn't have (possibly) smoked PCP with a star of Saturday Night Live. And he wouldn't have been named the Number One Partier in the Nation by Rolling Stone, inspired the movie National Lampoon's Van Wilder, or performed standup to sellout crowds across the country.
-
-
Fart Chrysler
- By Ryan Bonifay on 05-23-17
By: Bert Kreischer
-
The Bazaar of Bad Dreams
- Stories
- By: Stephen King
- Narrated by: Stephen King, Dylan Baker, Brooke Bloom, and others
- Length: 20 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A master storyteller at his best - the O. Henry Prize winner Stephen King delivers a generous collection of stories, several of them brand-new, featuring revelatory autobiographical comments on when, why, and how he came to write (or rewrite) each story. Magnificent, eerie, utterly compelling, these stories comprise one of King's finest gifts to his constant fan. "I made them especially for you," says King. "Feel free to examine them, but please be careful. The best of them have teeth."
-
-
HE'S A CUP OF COFFEE
- By Jim "The Impatient" on 12-10-15
By: Stephen King
-
Failure Is an Option
- An Attempted Memoir
- By: H. Jon Benjamin
- Narrated by: H. Jon Benjamin
- Length: 4 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
While he's not quite a household name, most people would consider H. Jon Benjamin, the voice-actor star of Archer and Bob's Burgers (and a sentient can of mixed vegetables in 2015's Wet Hot American Summer) a comedy show business success. But he'd like to remind everyone that as great as success can be, failure is also an option. In a hilarious, self-deprecating memoir, Jon lays out some of his many failures in all areas of life, from Work ("wherein I'm unable to deliver a sizzling fajita") to Family ("wherein a trip to PF Chang's fractures a family").
-
-
No joke, This book helped my marriage
- By Michelle on 05-07-18
By: H. Jon Benjamin
-
Spoonbenders
- A Novel
- By: Daryl Gregory
- Narrated by: Ari Fliakos
- Length: 14 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Teddy Telemachus is a charming con man with a gift for sleight of hand and some shady underground associates. In need of cash, he tricks his way into a classified government study about telekinesis and its possible role in intelligence gathering. There he meets Maureen McKinnon, and it's not just her piercing blue eyes that leave Teddy forever charmed but her mind - Maureen is a genuine psychic of immense and mysterious power.
-
-
Slow start, but patience is your friend here.
- By Heather on 08-22-17
By: Daryl Gregory
-
I Know This Much Is True
- By: Wally Lamb
- Narrated by: Ken Howard
- Length: 5 hrs and 42 mins
- Abridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the long awaited follow-up to the highly praised novel She's Come Undone, Dominick Birdsey must come to terms with himself, as well as with the schizophrenic twin brother he has spent his life both protecting and resenting.
-
-
Disappointing
- By Douglas on 03-20-08
By: Wally Lamb
-
Digging Up Mother
- A Love Story
- By: Johnny Depp - foreword, Doug Stanhope
- Narrated by: Doug Stanhope and Friends
- Length: 12 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Doug Stanhope is one of the most critically acclaimed and stridently unrepentant comedians of his generation. What will surprise some is that he owes so much of his dark and sometimes uncomfortably honest sense of humor to his mother, Bonnie.
-
-
Not my thing.
- By J. Harral on 01-27-18
By: Johnny Depp - foreword, and others
-
King of the Mild Frontier
- An Ill-Advised Autobiography
- By: Chris Crutcher
- Narrated by: Chris Crutcher
- Length: 4 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Once you have read about Chris Crutcher's life as a dateless, broken-toothed, scabbed-over, God-fearing dweeb, and once you have contemplated his ascension to the buckskin-upholstered throne of the King of the Mild Frontier, you will close this book, close your eyes and hold it to your chest, and say, "I, too, can be an author." Hell, anyone can.
-
-
Great story writing.
- By Amazon Customer on 07-21-17
By: Chris Crutcher
-
City on Fire
- A Novel
- By: Don Winslow
- Narrated by: Ari Fliakos
- Length: 8 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Two criminal empires together control all of New England. Until a beautiful woman comes between the Irish and the Italians, launching a war that will see them kill each other, destroy an alliance, and set a city on fire. Danny Ryan yearns for a more “legit” life and a place in the sun. But as the bloody conflict stacks body on body and brother turns against brother, Danny has to rise above himself.
-
-
Gripping, vivid and extremely entertaining
- By Victor @ theAudiobookBlog dot com on 04-26-22
By: Don Winslow
-
Not Taco Bell Material
- By: Adam Carolla
- Narrated by: Adam Carolla
- Length: 7 hrs and 59 mins
- Abridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Funnyman Adam Carolla is known for two things: hilarious rants about things that drive him crazy and personal stories about everything from his hardscrabble childhood to his slacker friends to the hypocrisy of Hollywood. He tackled rants in his first book, and now he tells his best stories and debuts some never-before-heard tales as well. Adam Carolla started broke and blue collar and has now been on the Hollywood scene for over 15 years. Yet he never lost his underdog demeanor.
-
-
Must have for any Adam Carolla Fan!
- By Ron on 06-13-12
By: Adam Carolla
-
Two and Two
- McSorley's, My Dad, and Me
- By: Rafe Bartholomew
- Narrated by: Rafe Bartholomew
- Length: 7 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
McSorley's Old Ale House has been serving light and dark ale on the Bowery in New York City's East Village since 1854. Although a Supreme Court ruling forced them to allow women inside in the 1970s, many of the bar's quirks have been constant for over a century, down to the newspaper-covered walls, Houdini's handcuffs, the raw onions, and its sawdust-strewn floors. But it's not just the decorations and attitude that stayed the same; it's the people who work and drink there. Rafe Bartholomew's father has been a bartender there for 40 years.
-
-
2+2 = 10
- By RB on 07-24-24
By: Rafe Bartholomew
-
Barrel Fever and Other Stories
- By: David Sedaris
- Narrated by: David Sedaris, Amy Sedaris
- Length: 2 hrs and 59 mins
- Abridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In David Sedaris' world, no one is safe and no cow is sacred. A manic cross between Mark Leyner, Fran Lebowitz, and the National Enquirer, Sedaris' collection of essays is a rollicking tour through the national Zeitgeist: a do-it-yourself suburban dad saves money by performing home surgery; a man who is loved too much flees the heavyweight champion of the world; a teenage suicide tries to incite a lynch mob at her funeral; a bitter Santa abuses the elves.
-
-
Be warned- Santaland Diaries is NOT included
- By David on 06-05-12
By: David Sedaris
-
Gorilla and the Bird
- A Memoir of Madness and a Mother's Love
- By: Zack McDermott
- Narrated by: Zack McDermott
- Length: 8 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Zack McDermott, a 26-year-old Brooklyn public defender, woke up one morning convinced he was being filmed, Truman Show-style, as part of an audition for a TV pilot. This was it - his big dreams were finally coming true. Every passerby was an actor; every car would magically stop for him; everything he saw was a cue from "The Producer" to help inspire the performance of a lifetime. After a manic spree around Manhattan, Zack, who is bipolar, was arrested on a subway platform and admitted to Bellevue Hospital.
-
-
By chapter three I had recommended this book to at least five people...
- By S. Robison on 11-01-20
By: Zack McDermott
-
The Boy Kings of Texas
- A Memoir
- By: Domingo Martinez
- Narrated by: Emilio Delgado
- Length: 13 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A lyrical and authentic book that recounts the story of a border-town family in Brownsville, Texas in the 1980s, as each member of the family desperately tries to assimilate and escape life on the border to become "real" Americans, even at the expense of their shared family history. This is really un-mined territory in the memoir genre that gives in-depth insight into a previously unexplored corner of America.
-
-
It was Okay
- By DebKoo on 05-17-13
By: Domingo Martinez
-
Revolver
- By: Duane Swierczynski
- Narrated by: Rick Zieff, John Glouchevitch, Christine Lakin
- Length: 9 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Philadelphia, 1965: Two street cops—one black, one white—are gunned down in a corner bar. One of the fallen officers, Stan Walczak, leaves behind a 12-year-old boy, Jimmy. Philadelphia, 1995: Homicide detective Jim Walczak learns that his father's alleged killer, Terrill Lee Stanton, has been sprung from prison. Jim stalks the ex-con, hoping to finally learn the truth.
-
-
A Gem. Swierczynski is here to stay.
- By Lawnchair King on 06-19-17
-
Drunkard
- A Hard-Drinking Life
- By: Neil Steinberg
- Narrated by: Jeff Woodman
- Length: 8 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Chicago Sun-Times columnist Neil Steinberg loved his job, his wife, and his two young sons. But he also loved to drink. Drunkard is an unflinchingly honest account of one man's descent into alcoholism and his ambivalent struggle to embrace sobriety. Sentenced to an outpatient rehab program, Steinberg discovers that twenty-eight days of therapy cannot reverse the toll taken by decades of hard drinking.
-
-
Caution: Triggering Content for Alcoholics!
- By Gail on 08-10-14
By: Neil Steinberg
Publisher's summary
In 13 chapters Paul Mullin mixes up a potent cocktail of working, drinking, family and Zen.
It all starts - where else? - at the Starting Gate: a shit-kicker country bar in Northern Maryland where the author first started working at the age of 13, and where his boss once shot a man dead for trying to rob the local drug store. Other jobs follow, like when he works as the only white kid on an all-black labor crew at the National Archives, or the years he spends as a high-rise window cleaner in Manhattan.
An essential primer for anyone interested in Zen and/or cocktails, or for anyone who enjoys a good story as if told from the next barstool over.
Related to this topic
-
The Boy Kings of Texas
- A Memoir
- By: Domingo Martinez
- Narrated by: Emilio Delgado
- Length: 13 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A lyrical and authentic book that recounts the story of a border-town family in Brownsville, Texas in the 1980s, as each member of the family desperately tries to assimilate and escape life on the border to become "real" Americans, even at the expense of their shared family history. This is really un-mined territory in the memoir genre that gives in-depth insight into a previously unexplored corner of America.
-
-
It was Okay
- By DebKoo on 05-17-13
By: Domingo Martinez
-
Digging Up Mother
- A Love Story
- By: Johnny Depp - foreword, Doug Stanhope
- Narrated by: Doug Stanhope and Friends
- Length: 12 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Doug Stanhope is one of the most critically acclaimed and stridently unrepentant comedians of his generation. What will surprise some is that he owes so much of his dark and sometimes uncomfortably honest sense of humor to his mother, Bonnie.
-
-
Not my thing.
- By J. Harral on 01-27-18
By: Johnny Depp - foreword, and others
-
The Hour I First Believed
- A Novel
- By: Wally Lamb
- Narrated by: George Guidall
- Length: 25 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When high-school teacher Caelum Quirk and his wife, Maureen, move to Littleton, Colorado, they both get jobs at Columbine High School. In April 1999, while Caelum is away, Maureen finds herself in the library at Columbine, cowering in a cabinet and expecting to be killed. Miraculously, she survives. But when Caelum and Maureen flee to an illusion of safety on the Quirk family's Connecticut farm, they discover that the effects of chaos are not easily put right.
-
-
excellent all around yarn
- By G. on 01-10-09
By: Wally Lamb
-
The Pursuit of Happyness (Abridged)
- By: Chris Gardner
- Narrated by: Andre Blake
- Length: 5 hrs and 42 mins
- Abridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
At the age of 20, Chris Gardner arrived in San Francisco to pursue a promising career in medicine. However, he surprised everyone and himself by setting his sights on the competitive world of high finance. Yet no sooner had he landed an entry-level position at a prestigious firm, Gardner found himself caught in a web of incredibly challenging circumstances that left him part of the city's working homeless with his toddler son.
-
-
Very Good Story!
- By Lito Da Critic on 06-02-06
By: Chris Gardner
-
The Postmortal
- A Novel
- By: Drew Magary
- Narrated by: Johnny Heller
- Length: 10 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In a world where an anti-aging cure is available worldwide, immortality comes with its own unique problems. John Farrell is about to get "The Cure". Old age can never kill him now. The only problem is, everything else still can.
-
-
Interesting concept but bleak and wearing
- By Amazon Customer on 05-15-12
By: Drew Magary
-
Road Dog
- Life and Reflections from the Road as a Stand-up Comic
- By: Dov Davidoff
- Narrated by: Dov Davidoff
- Length: 5 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Road Dog is comedian, actor, and writer, Dov Davidoff's unflinching memoir told through reflections of twelve months on the road. Davidoff travels across the country from college campuses to local theaters doing stand-up comedy and telling it like it is. He's been known to wax poetic about everything from encounters with large fake breasts, to people who have too many kids, to magnum condoms the size of CD cases. He is hilarious and relatable and will have you laughing at yourself in no time.
-
-
dark, real, & exceptional
- By Luis F Rodriguez on 11-22-17
By: Dov Davidoff
-
The Boy Kings of Texas
- A Memoir
- By: Domingo Martinez
- Narrated by: Emilio Delgado
- Length: 13 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A lyrical and authentic book that recounts the story of a border-town family in Brownsville, Texas in the 1980s, as each member of the family desperately tries to assimilate and escape life on the border to become "real" Americans, even at the expense of their shared family history. This is really un-mined territory in the memoir genre that gives in-depth insight into a previously unexplored corner of America.
-
-
It was Okay
- By DebKoo on 05-17-13
By: Domingo Martinez
-
Digging Up Mother
- A Love Story
- By: Johnny Depp - foreword, Doug Stanhope
- Narrated by: Doug Stanhope and Friends
- Length: 12 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Doug Stanhope is one of the most critically acclaimed and stridently unrepentant comedians of his generation. What will surprise some is that he owes so much of his dark and sometimes uncomfortably honest sense of humor to his mother, Bonnie.
-
-
Not my thing.
- By J. Harral on 01-27-18
By: Johnny Depp - foreword, and others
-
The Hour I First Believed
- A Novel
- By: Wally Lamb
- Narrated by: George Guidall
- Length: 25 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When high-school teacher Caelum Quirk and his wife, Maureen, move to Littleton, Colorado, they both get jobs at Columbine High School. In April 1999, while Caelum is away, Maureen finds herself in the library at Columbine, cowering in a cabinet and expecting to be killed. Miraculously, she survives. But when Caelum and Maureen flee to an illusion of safety on the Quirk family's Connecticut farm, they discover that the effects of chaos are not easily put right.
-
-
excellent all around yarn
- By G. on 01-10-09
By: Wally Lamb
-
The Pursuit of Happyness (Abridged)
- By: Chris Gardner
- Narrated by: Andre Blake
- Length: 5 hrs and 42 mins
- Abridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
At the age of 20, Chris Gardner arrived in San Francisco to pursue a promising career in medicine. However, he surprised everyone and himself by setting his sights on the competitive world of high finance. Yet no sooner had he landed an entry-level position at a prestigious firm, Gardner found himself caught in a web of incredibly challenging circumstances that left him part of the city's working homeless with his toddler son.
-
-
Very Good Story!
- By Lito Da Critic on 06-02-06
By: Chris Gardner
-
The Postmortal
- A Novel
- By: Drew Magary
- Narrated by: Johnny Heller
- Length: 10 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In a world where an anti-aging cure is available worldwide, immortality comes with its own unique problems. John Farrell is about to get "The Cure". Old age can never kill him now. The only problem is, everything else still can.
-
-
Interesting concept but bleak and wearing
- By Amazon Customer on 05-15-12
By: Drew Magary
-
Road Dog
- Life and Reflections from the Road as a Stand-up Comic
- By: Dov Davidoff
- Narrated by: Dov Davidoff
- Length: 5 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Road Dog is comedian, actor, and writer, Dov Davidoff's unflinching memoir told through reflections of twelve months on the road. Davidoff travels across the country from college campuses to local theaters doing stand-up comedy and telling it like it is. He's been known to wax poetic about everything from encounters with large fake breasts, to people who have too many kids, to magnum condoms the size of CD cases. He is hilarious and relatable and will have you laughing at yourself in no time.
-
-
dark, real, & exceptional
- By Luis F Rodriguez on 11-22-17
By: Dov Davidoff
-
Stories I'd Tell in Bars
- By: Jen Lancaster
- Narrated by: Jen Lancaster, John Fletcher
- Length: 8 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Unfiltered. Unapologetic. Older, but not wiser, Lancaster goes back to basics in this hilarious essay collection about everything from taking community policing classes to accidentally getting high with her waiter after a fancy dinner. These are the tales she'd tell if she met you in a bar... if she weren't too lazy to put on pants and go to a bar. Offering advice ranging from how to remain happily married to a man who refuses to blow his damn nose already to not creating An Incident at the cheese counter during an attempt at Whole30, she's you, only louder.
-
-
self absorbed
- By D D H on 06-15-19
By: Jen Lancaster
-
Sunny's Nights
- Lost and Found at the Bar at the End of the World
- By: Tim Sultan
- Narrated by: Robert Malloch
- Length: 8 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Imagine that Alice had walked into a bar instead of falling down the rabbit hole. In the tradition of J. R. Moehringer’s The Tender Bar and the classic reportage of Joseph Mitchell, here is an indelible portrait of what is quite possibly the greatest bar in the world—and the mercurial, magnificent man behind it. The first time he saw Sunny’s Bar, in 1995, Tim Sultan was lost, thirsty for a drink, and intrigued by the single bar sign among the forlorn warehouses lining the Brooklyn waterfront.
-
-
Visiting an Era
- By Carolyn on 03-01-16
By: Tim Sultan
-
The Sins of the Fathers
- By: Lawrence Block
- Narrated by: Alan Sklar
- Length: 5 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The hooker was young, pretty...and dead, butchered in a Greenwich Village apartment. The prime suspect, a minister's son, was also dead, the victim of a jailhouse suicide. The case is closed, as far as the NYPD is concerned. Now the murdered prostitute's father wants it opened again--that's where Matthew Scudder comes in.
-
-
Good introduction to a popular series
- By Sharron on 12-26-11
By: Lawrence Block
-
Lawn Boy
- By: Jonathan Evison
- Narrated by: P. J. Ochlan
- Length: 8 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
For Mike Muñoz, a young Chicano living in Washington State, life has been a whole lot of waiting for something to happen. Not too many years out of high school and still doing menial work - and just fired from his latest gig as a lawn boy on a landscaping crew - he knows that he's got to be the one to shake things up if he's ever going to change his life. But how?
-
-
CATEGORY AND SUMMARY MISLEADING
- By Gretchen on 05-01-18
By: Jonathan Evison
-
This Might Get a Little Heavy
- A Memoir
- By: Ralphie May, Nils Parker
- Narrated by: Oliver Wyman
- Length: 8 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
There was a time when Ralphie May was one of the biggest stand-up comedians in the country, both by ticket sales and by tonnage. While some things changed - Ralphie lost half his body weight - others did not: He will be remembered as one of the most successful comics of his time. Completed just months before his untimely passing, in This Might Get a Little Heavy, Ralphie takes listeners on a behind-the-scenes tour of his life and career, one that winds across the country, over obstacles, beyond heartbreak, and through the golden age of stand-up.
-
-
brilliant and tragic
- By Timothy Trujillo on 08-12-18
By: Ralphie May, and others
-
You're Better than Me
- A Memoir
- By: Bonnie McFarlane
- Narrated by: Bonnie McFarlane, Alexander Cendese
- Length: 7 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the spirit of Mindy Kaling, Kelly Oxford, and Sarah Silverman, a compulsively listenable and outrageously funny memoir of growing up as a fish out of water, finding your voice, and embracing your inner crazy person from popular actress, writer, and comedian Bonnie McFarlane.
-
-
Sandy!!! She wrote a book...it's crazy, a book!!!
- By Jonathan Placek on 03-02-16
By: Bonnie McFarlane
-
On Drinking
- By: Charles Bukowski
- Narrated by: Roger Wayne
- Length: 4 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Charles Bukowski turns to the bottle in this revelatory collection of poetry and prose that includes some of the writer’s best and most lasting work. A self-proclaimed “dirty old man”, Bukowski used alcohol as muse and as fuel, a conflicted relationship responsible for some of his darkest moments, as well as some of his most joyful and inspired. In On Drinking, Bukowski expert Abel Debritto has collected the writer’s most profound, funny, and memorable work on his ups and downs with the hard stuff.
-
-
Don't read this sober
- By Lowball on 03-02-19
By: Charles Bukowski
-
Bright Lights, Big City
- By: Jay McInerney
- Narrated by: Daniel Passer
- Length: 5 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The tragicomedy of a young man in New York City, a writer, never named, who works as a fact-checker for a prestigious magazine. He struggles with the reality of his mother's death, alienation, and the seductive pull of drugs and a vibrant nightlife.
-
-
Curiously, mundanely real
- By Amber on 01-07-12
By: Jay McInerney
-
Hardly Knew Her
- By: Laura Lippman
- Narrated by: Linda Emond, Francois Battiste
- Length: 9 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Each of these ingenious tales is a gem, sometimes poignant, sometimes humorous, always filled with delightfully unanticipated twists and reversals. For people who have yet to listen to Lippman, get ready to experience the spellbinding power of "one of today's most pleasing storytellers" ( San Diego Union-Tribune). As for longtime devotees of her multiple award-winning novels, you'll discover that you hardly know her.
-
-
I Love Laura Lippman
- By Joy on 07-15-11
By: Laura Lippman
-
The Chosen
- By: John G. Hartness
- Narrated by: Andrew McFerrin
- Length: 6 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
What do you get when you mix a couple of immortals, a snotty archangel, the Father of Lies, a redneck street preacher and a couple of wiseass waitresses from Texas?
-
-
Good Story Bad Ending
- By Mario on 05-13-15
By: John G. Hartness
-
The Turner House
- By: Angela Flournoy
- Narrated by: Adenrele Ojo
- Length: 12 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Turners have lived on Yarrow Street for over 50 years. Their house has seen 13 children grown and gone - and some returned; it has seen the arrival of grandchildren, the fall of Detroit's East Side, and the loss of a father. The house still stands despite abandoned lots, an embattled city, and the inevitable shift outward to the suburbs. But now, as ailing matriarch Viola finds herself forced to leave her home and move in with her eldest son, the family discovers that the house is worth just a 10th of its mortgage.
-
-
The narrator's performance made the difference.
- By KT on 06-11-15
By: Angela Flournoy
-
Big City, Bad Blood
- By: Sean Chercover
- Narrated by: Joe Barrett
- Length: 10 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Disillusioned newspaper reporter-turned-private detective Ray Dudgeon doesn't want to save the world; he just wants to do an honest job well. But when doing an honest job threatens society's most powerful and corrupt, Ray's odds of survival make for a sucker's bet.
-
-
Quintessentially Chicago
- By Eva Gannon on 09-21-09
By: Sean Chercover
What listeners say about The Starting Gate
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- RKC
- 06-20-18
Evocative. Charming. Thoughtful.
In this meditation on small town life, big city jobs, masculinity and growing up in the 1980's, Mullin references the Mother Teresa quote: "Do small things with great love" several times. It is apt for this book as well.
In vividly drawing his coming of age in the 1980's and 90's, Mullin is presenting us with many small observances that are all delivered with great love indeed. Along the way we learn the fascinating minutia of high rise window cleaning, being an efficient stock boy, working at the national archives, zen practice and meditation, and how to get the most out of a bar's happy hour.
Mullin, a former actor, does a terrific job of imbuing the stories that make up this volume with just the right amount of sensitivity and swagger.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- "omboy"
- 01-14-18
A great listen, well-presented and quite different from the standard fare on Audible.
Performance including accents of certain characters was excellent
Story is a misnomer, this really is a cocktail of a of autobiographical stories, worldview and no shortage of opinions. Overall flow was compelling though some further refinement could have been applied to sections on bar etiquette and Zen experiences.
Overall, a truly unique listen very much worth the time spent.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Wostambu
- 10-04-16
Great book, especially for a guy
Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?
I really liked this book. I am female, and while I was listening to the book, I kept thinking what a great listen it would be for some men. Mullins has some amusing stories to tell. As long as the man in your life doesn't mind a little cussing and likes to drink, I think it would make a great gift.
What did you like best about this story?
I liked how it kept my attention. He's got some good stories to tell.
Which character – as performed by Paul Mullin – was your favorite?
Mullin did a great job reading it. As I've gotten a bit older (50s), I have come to enjoy listening to audible books, because my eyes don't lend themselves well to long reading periods. He's quite a good narrator, which I would expect, since he endeavored to have an acting career at one point. I always like when authors read their own works, although sometimes it doesn't always work as well as it did here.
Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?
I like his nostalgic bent and the feelings that evokes when I'm in the mood for it.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!