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The Strange Case of Dr. Couney
- How a Mysterious European Showman Saved Thousands of American Babies
- Narrated by: Erin Bennett
- Length: 6 hrs and 28 mins
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Publisher's summary
"A mosaic mystery told in vignettes, cliffhangers, curious asides, and some surreal plot twists as Raffel investigates the secrets of the man who changed infant care in America.... It's a fascinating historical footnote, compassionately told." (NPR)
A New York Times Book Review New & Noteworthy Title
What kind of doctor puts his patients on display?
This is the spellbinding tale of a mysterious doctor who revolutionized neonatal care more than 100 years ago and saved some 7,000 babies. Dr. Martin Couney's story is a kaleidoscopic ride through the intersection of ebullient entrepreneurship, enlightened pediatric care, and the wild culture of world's fairs at the beginning of the American Century.
As Dawn Raffel recounts, Dr. Couney used incubators and careful nursing to keep previously doomed infants alive while displaying these babies alongside sword swallowers, bearded ladies, and burlesque shows at Coney Island, Atlantic City, and venues across the nation. How this turn-of-the-20th-century emigre became the savior to families with premature infants - known then as "weaklings" - as he ignored the scorn of the medical establishment and fought the rising popularity of eugenics is one of the most astounding stories of modern medicine. Dr. Couney, for all his entrepreneurial gusto, is a surprisingly appealing character, someone who genuinely cared for the well-being of his tiny patients. But he had something to hide....
Drawing on historical documents, original reportage, and interviews with surviving patients, Dawn Raffel tells the marvelously eccentric story of Couney's mysterious carnival career, his larger-than-life personality, and his unprecedented success as the savior of the fragile wonders that are tiny, tiny babies.
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Story
The dark-eyed woman in the long, black gown was first seen in the 1970s, standing near a fireplace. She was sad and translucent, present and absent at once. Strange things began to happen in the Santa Fe hotel where she was seen. Gas fireplaces turned off and on without anyone touching a switch. Glasses flew off shelves. And in one second-floor suite with a canopy bed and arched windows looking out to the mountains, guests reported alarming events.
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A true American tale
- By Cleo Colorado on 05-29-15
By: Hannah Nordhaus
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The Curse of Beauty
- The Scandalous & Tragic Life of Audrey Munson, America's First Supermodel
- By: James Bone
- Narrated by: Marianne Fraulo
- Length: 10 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
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As America was stepping into the modern era, one great beauty became the artist's model of choice. Her perfect form became the emblem of the Gilded Age and appears on the greatest monuments of New York and the nation. Supermodel, actress, icon - her beauty paved the way for a life of glamour, passion, and ultimately tragedy. Her name is Audrey Munson.
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Fascinating
- By Аmazon Customer on 04-06-17
By: James Bone
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Lady Bird
- A Biography of Mrs. Johnson
- By: Jan Jarboe Russell
- Narrated by: Andrea Gallo
- Length: 16 hrs
- Unabridged
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A revealing biography of Lady Bird Johnson with startling new insights into her marriage to Lyndon Baines Johnson and her unexpectedly strong impact on his presidency. Long obscured by her husband's shadow, Claudia "Lady Bird" Johnson emerges in this first comprehensive biography as a figure of surprising influence and the centering force for LBJ, a man who suffered from extreme mood swings and desperately needed someone to help control his darker impulses.
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Do not waste an audible credit
- By Sandra B. on 10-15-23
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The Sisters
- The Saga of the Mitford Family
- By: Mary S. Lovell
- Narrated by: Annie Wauters
- Length: 18 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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This is the story of a close, loving family splintered by the violent ideologies of Europe between the wars. Jessica was a Communist; Debo became the Duchess of Devonshire; Nancy was one of the best-selling novelists of her day; the ethereally beautiful Diana was the most hated woman in England; and Unity Valkyrie, born in Swastika, Alaska, would become obsessed with Adolf Hitler.
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Great story, terrible reader
- By Victoria on 02-27-14
By: Mary S. Lovell
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And So It Goes
- Kurt Vonnegut: A Life
- By: Charles J. Shields
- Narrated by: Fred Berman
- Length: 17 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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New York Times best-selling author and biographer Charles J. Shields crafts this fascinating portrait of literary icon Kurt Vonnegut. The first authorized biography of the influential American writer, And So It Goes examines Vonnegut’s life, from his childhood to his death in 2007, and explores how the author changed the conversation of American literature.
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Probably only for die hard Vonnegut fans
- By Watery M on 12-22-12
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The Last Love Song
- A Biography of Joan Didion
- By: Tracy Daugherty
- Narrated by: Bernadette Dunne
- Length: 26 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
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Joan Didion lived a life in the public and private eye with her late husband, writer John Gregory Dunne, whom she met while the two were working in New York City, when Didion was at Vogue and Dunne was writing for Time. They became wildly successful writing partners when they moved to Los Angeles and cowrote screenplays and adaptations together. Didion is well known for her literary journalistic style in both fiction and nonfiction.
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Riveted for 1591 miles
- By Kaysi12 on 04-11-16
By: Tracy Daugherty
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Franklin and Lucy
- President Roosevelt, Mrs. Rutherfurd, and the Other Remarkable Women in His Life
- By: Joseph E. Persico
- Narrated by: Ted Barker
- Length: 17 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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Franklin Delano Roosevelt was arguably the greatest figure of the 20th century. While FDR's official circle was predominantly male, it was his relationships with women - particularly with Lucy Mercer Rutherfurd - that most vividly bring to light the human being beneath this towering statesman.
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Franklin and Lucy
- By Connie's on 03-06-09
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Paper Love
- Searching for the Girl My Grandfather Left Behind
- By: Sarah Wildman
- Narrated by: Tavia Gilbert
- Length: 12 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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Years after her grandfather's death, journalist Sarah Wildman stumbled upon a cache of his letters in a file labeled "Correspondence: Patients A-G". What she found inside weren't dry medical histories; instead what was written opened a path into the destroyed world that was her family's prewar Vienna. One woman's letters stood out: those from Valy-Valerie Scheftel, her grandfather's lover who remained behind when he fled Europe six months after the Nazis annexed Austria.
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Compelling and Personal Exploration
- By Murphee on 08-09-23
By: Sarah Wildman
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The Devil in the White City
- Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair That Changed America
- By: Erik Larson
- Narrated by: Scott Brick
- Length: 14 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
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Two men, each handsome and unusually adept at his chosen work, embodied an element of the great dynamic that characterized America’s rush toward the twentieth century. The architect was Daniel Hudson Burnham, the fair’s brilliant director of works and the builder of many of the country’s most important structures, including the Flatiron Building in New York and Union Station in Washington, D.C. The murderer was Henry H. Holmes, a young doctor who, in a malign parody of the White City, built his “World’s Fair Hotel” just west of the fairgrounds.
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A Rich Read!
- By D on 09-18-03
By: Erik Larson
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Jack London
- An American Life
- By: Earle Labor
- Narrated by: Michael Prichard
- Length: 16 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
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Jack London was born a working class, fatherless Californian in 1876. In his youth, he was a boundlessly energetic adventurer on the bustling West Coast - an oyster pirate, a hobo, a sailor, and a prospector by turns. He spent his brief life rapidly accumulating the experiences that would inform his acclaimed best-selling books The Call of the Wild, White Fang, and The Sea-Wolf.
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Glad I chose this
- By SherryH on 04-14-19
By: Earle Labor
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Eleanor and Hick
- The Love Affair That Shaped a First Lady
- By: Susan Quinn
- Narrated by: Kimberly Farr
- Length: 13 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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In 1932 Eleanor Roosevelt entered the claustrophobic, duty-bound existence of the first lady with dread. By that time she had put her deep disappointment in her marriage behind her and developed an independent life - now threatened by the public role she would be forced to play. A lifeline came to her in the form of a feisty campaign reporter for the Associated Press: Lorena Hickok. Over the next 30 years, until Eleanor's death, the two women carried on an extraordinary relationship.
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An Icon who was real.
- By Francine Fields on 08-17-17
By: Susan Quinn
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Empty Mansions
- The Mysterious Life of Huguette Clark and the Spending of a Great American Fortune
- By: Bill Dedman, Paul Clark Newell Jr.
- Narrated by: Kimberly Farr
- Length: 13 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
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When Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Bill Dedman noticed in 2009 a grand home for sale, unoccupied for nearly 60 years, he stumbled through a surprising portal into American history. Empty Mansions is a rich mystery of wealth and loss, connecting the Gilded Age opulence of the 19th century with a 21st-century battle over a $300 million inheritance. At its heart is a reclusive heiress named Huguette Clark, a woman so secretive that, at the time of her death at age 104, no new photograph of her had been seen in decades.
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Fascinating, But Know This...
- By Karen K on 04-08-15
By: Bill Dedman, and others
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The Colony
- The Harrowing True Story of the Exiles on Molokai
- By: John Tayman
- Narrated by: Patrick Lawlor
- Length: 15 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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In 1866, 12 men and women and one small child were forced aboard a leaky schooner and cast away to a natural prison on the Hawaiian island of Molokai. Two weeks later, a dozen others were exiled, and then 40 more, and then 100 more. Tracked by bounty hunters and torn screaming from their families, the luckless were loaded into shipboard cattle stalls and abandoned in a lawless place where brutality held sway. Many did not have leprosy, and most of those who did were not contagious.
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Interesting
- By Matt on 10-31-06
By: John Tayman
What listeners say about The Strange Case of Dr. Couney
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- LillyFace
- 10-16-18
Beautiful.Baby Story
So much learned about how people embraced the sacredness of life, the will of the hu.an spirit.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Recon-Reader
- 04-20-21
Great peace of history
I loved this! I came across a peace of 'did you know' on Facebook about Dr. Couney. Now everyone knows you shouldn't believe a thing without doing your own research. Well it was interesting enough to make me look it up myself. Which is how I came across this book.
I loved learning more about this! The story is told in a mix of investigation and story telling which I personally like when telling the history of someone or something.
anyway very interesting listen.
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- Bruce guariglia
- 11-20-20
delightful surprise
I had never heard of this man before this book, and his story bizarre, touching, and inspiring, making him one of my favorite people now to ever exist. beyond that this book is absolutely filled with historical rabbit holes to throw yourself down, and I loved every minute of it.
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- Kristen
- 05-11-22
Interesting story but dragged a bit
Interesting story but the story telling dragged a bit in parts. Also, the lack of conclusion into who Martin Couney was a bit dissatisfying even though the story hinted at a caring and knowledgeable fraudman. The author really could have made a nice case for alternative sources of knowledge production, but in the end Martin Couney remains a mystery.
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- M Jo
- 09-18-18
Amazing
I can’t say enough how amazing this story was.
Not being familiar with the locations mentioned in the book, it was a little difficult to visualize. Still, if authentic, it was truly fascinating.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Rochelle Jewel Shapiro
- 10-04-18
What a slice of history!,
So glad to have seen introduced to Ckuey! What an usual hero. who faced slander, fired., the com.on belief in eugenics t. Yet Couney parserveref and sa ed countless premied.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Amazon Customer
- 12-05-21
Unbelievable
Unbelievable true story………amazing history……oh what we don’t know !
And very timely…..with what is going on in us courts today!
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- Amazon Customer
- 08-06-18
Dr. Couney has rewards in heaven.
What a Brave Hero. This book is a beautiful tribute to a man who saved so many lives. I will read it again.
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2 people found this helpful
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- Cindy
- 08-15-18
Fascinating
I thoroughly enjoyed this book! Couldn’t stop listening or talking to my friends about it.
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2 people found this helpful
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- Anne Dabecco
- 08-10-18
Fascinating
Husband and I both enjoyed this audible selection immensely. Will share w/ others. Thank yih
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1 person found this helpful