Vida
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 $14.95
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
-
Narrated by:
-
Heather Margaret
-
By:
-
Patricia Engel
About this listen
Fresh, accomplished, and fearless, Vida marks the debut of Patricia Engel, a young author of immense talent and promise.
Vida follows a single narrator, Sabina, as she navigates her shifting identity as a daughter of the Colombian diaspora and struggles to find her place within and beyond the net of her strong, protective, but embattled family. In Lucho, Sabina's family already foreigners in a town of blancos is shunned by the community when a relative commits an unspeakable act of violence, but she is in turn befriended by the town bad boy who has a secret of his own; in Desaliento, Sabina surrounds herself with other young drifters who spend their time looking for love and then fleeing from it until reality catches up with one of them; and in Vida, the urgency of Sabina's self-imposed exile in Miami fades when she meets an enigmatic Colombian woman with a tragic past.
Patricia Engel maps landscapes both actual and interior in this stunning debut, and the constant throughout is Sabina serious, witty, alternately cautious and reckless, open to transformation yet skeptical of its lasting power. Infused by a hard-won, edgy wisdom, Vida introduces a sensational new literary voice.
©2010 Patricia Engel. Recorded by arrangement with Grove/Atlantic, Inc. (P)2013 Audible, Inc.Listeners also enjoyed...
-
Infinite Country
- By: Patricia Engel
- Narrated by: Inés del Castillo
- Length: 4 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Talia is being held at a correctional facility for adolescent girls in the forested mountains of Colombia after committing an impulsive act of violence that may or may not have been warranted. She urgently needs to get out and get back home to Bogotá, where her father and a plane ticket to the United States are waiting for her. If she misses her flight, she might also miss her chance to finally be reunited with her family.
-
-
Disappointed
- By Josh on 04-06-21
By: Patricia Engel
-
Temple Folk
- By: Aaliyah Bilal
- Narrated by: Amir Abdullah, Chanté McCormick, Soneela Nankani, and others
- Length: 8 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In Temple Folk, Black Muslims contemplate the convictions of their race, religion, economics, politics, and sexuality in America. The ten “beautiful and vivid” (Jacqueline Woodson, National Book Award–winning and New York Times bestselling author) stories in this collection contribute to the bounty of diverse narratives about Black life by intimately portraying the experiences of a community that resists the mainstream culture to which they are expected to accept and aspire to while functioning within the country in which they are born.
-
-
Insightful
- By Amazon Customer on 04-25-24
By: Aaliyah Bilal
-
Bailey's Café
- By: Gloria Naylor
- Narrated by: Augustus Williamson, Medwin Johnson, Cedric Ward, and others
- Length: 7 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Welcome to Bailey's Café, the most mythically real diner you've ever walked into. Presided over by Bailey and his helpmate, Nadine, it is a magnet that draws a wide variety of the "colored" people of 1948, each with a story to tell.
-
-
Gloria Naylor's Bailey's Cafe...Wow!
- By Sagashus on 12-10-12
By: Gloria Naylor
-
Of Love and Shadows
- A Novel
- By: Isabel Allende
- Narrated by: Cynthia Farrell
- Length: 10 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Irene Beltrán is a force to be reckoned with. As a magazine journalist, an unusual profession for a woman with her privileged upbringing, she is constantly challenging the oppressive regime. Her investigative partner is photographer Francisco Leal, the son of impoverished Spanish Marxist émigrés. Together, they are an inseparable team and - despite Irene’s engagement to an army captain - form a passionate connection.
-
-
Good story, but difficult to follow at times
- By Carmen on 04-21-20
By: Isabel Allende
-
If I Survive You
- By: Jonathan Escoffery
- Narrated by: Torian Brackett
- Length: 8 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the 1970s, Topper and Sanya flee to Miami as political violence consumes their native Kingston. But America, as the couple and their two children learn, is far from the promised land. Excluded from society as Black immigrants, the family pushes on first through Hurricane Andrew and later the 2008 recession, living in a house so cursed that the pet fish launches itself out of its own tank rather than stay. But even as things fall apart, the family remains motivated, often to its own detriment, by what their younger son, Trelawny, calls “the exquisite, racking compulsion to survive.”
-
-
Good except for the ending
- By Morris Nelms on 11-20-22
-
Paper Names
- A Novel
- By: Susie Luo
- Narrated by: Austin Ku
- Length: 8 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Set in New York and China over three decades, Paper Names explores what it means to be American from three different perspectives. There’s Tony, a Chinese-born engineer turned Manhattan doorman, who immigrated to the United States to give his family a better life. His daughter, Tammy, who we meet at age nine and follow through adulthood, grapples with the expectations of a first generation American and her own personal desires. Finally, there’s Oliver, a handsome white lawyer with a dark family secret and who lives in the building where Tony works.
-
-
Nice story
- By asdfasf on 05-02-24
By: Susie Luo
-
Infinite Country
- By: Patricia Engel
- Narrated by: Inés del Castillo
- Length: 4 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Talia is being held at a correctional facility for adolescent girls in the forested mountains of Colombia after committing an impulsive act of violence that may or may not have been warranted. She urgently needs to get out and get back home to Bogotá, where her father and a plane ticket to the United States are waiting for her. If she misses her flight, she might also miss her chance to finally be reunited with her family.
-
-
Disappointed
- By Josh on 04-06-21
By: Patricia Engel
-
Temple Folk
- By: Aaliyah Bilal
- Narrated by: Amir Abdullah, Chanté McCormick, Soneela Nankani, and others
- Length: 8 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In Temple Folk, Black Muslims contemplate the convictions of their race, religion, economics, politics, and sexuality in America. The ten “beautiful and vivid” (Jacqueline Woodson, National Book Award–winning and New York Times bestselling author) stories in this collection contribute to the bounty of diverse narratives about Black life by intimately portraying the experiences of a community that resists the mainstream culture to which they are expected to accept and aspire to while functioning within the country in which they are born.
-
-
Insightful
- By Amazon Customer on 04-25-24
By: Aaliyah Bilal
-
Bailey's Café
- By: Gloria Naylor
- Narrated by: Augustus Williamson, Medwin Johnson, Cedric Ward, and others
- Length: 7 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Welcome to Bailey's Café, the most mythically real diner you've ever walked into. Presided over by Bailey and his helpmate, Nadine, it is a magnet that draws a wide variety of the "colored" people of 1948, each with a story to tell.
-
-
Gloria Naylor's Bailey's Cafe...Wow!
- By Sagashus on 12-10-12
By: Gloria Naylor
-
Of Love and Shadows
- A Novel
- By: Isabel Allende
- Narrated by: Cynthia Farrell
- Length: 10 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Irene Beltrán is a force to be reckoned with. As a magazine journalist, an unusual profession for a woman with her privileged upbringing, she is constantly challenging the oppressive regime. Her investigative partner is photographer Francisco Leal, the son of impoverished Spanish Marxist émigrés. Together, they are an inseparable team and - despite Irene’s engagement to an army captain - form a passionate connection.
-
-
Good story, but difficult to follow at times
- By Carmen on 04-21-20
By: Isabel Allende
-
If I Survive You
- By: Jonathan Escoffery
- Narrated by: Torian Brackett
- Length: 8 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the 1970s, Topper and Sanya flee to Miami as political violence consumes their native Kingston. But America, as the couple and their two children learn, is far from the promised land. Excluded from society as Black immigrants, the family pushes on first through Hurricane Andrew and later the 2008 recession, living in a house so cursed that the pet fish launches itself out of its own tank rather than stay. But even as things fall apart, the family remains motivated, often to its own detriment, by what their younger son, Trelawny, calls “the exquisite, racking compulsion to survive.”
-
-
Good except for the ending
- By Morris Nelms on 11-20-22
-
Paper Names
- A Novel
- By: Susie Luo
- Narrated by: Austin Ku
- Length: 8 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Set in New York and China over three decades, Paper Names explores what it means to be American from three different perspectives. There’s Tony, a Chinese-born engineer turned Manhattan doorman, who immigrated to the United States to give his family a better life. His daughter, Tammy, who we meet at age nine and follow through adulthood, grapples with the expectations of a first generation American and her own personal desires. Finally, there’s Oliver, a handsome white lawyer with a dark family secret and who lives in the building where Tony works.
-
-
Nice story
- By asdfasf on 05-02-24
By: Susie Luo
-
The Neuroscientist Who Lost Her Mind
- My Tale of Madness and Recovery
- By: Barbara K. Lipska, Elaine McArdle - contributor
- Narrated by: Emma Powell
- Length: 6 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 2015, Barbara Lipska - a leading expert on the neuroscience of mental illness - was diagnosed with melanoma that had spread to her brain. Within months, her frontal lobe, the seat of cognition, began shutting down. She descended into madness, exhibiting dementia- and schizophrenia-like symptoms that terrified her family and coworkers. But miraculously, the immunotherapy her doctors had prescribed worked quickly. Just eight weeks after her nightmare began, Lipska returned to normal. With one difference: she remembered her brush with madness with exquisite clarity.
-
-
Be Prepared To Feel Insane--
- By Gillian on 04-11-18
By: Barbara K. Lipska, and others
-
Dreaming in Cuban
- By: Cristina García
- Narrated by: Frankie Corzo, Marisa Blake, Anthony Lee Medina, and others
- Length: 8 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Cristina García’s acclaimed book is the haunting, bittersweet story of a family experiencing a country’s revolution and the revelations that follow. The lives of Celia del Pino and her husband, daughters, and grandchildren mirror the magical realism of Cuba itself, a landscape of beauty and poverty, idealism and corruption. Dreaming in Cuban is “a work that possesses both the intimacy of a Chekov story and the hallucinatory magic of a novel by Gabriel García Márquez” (The New York Times).
-
-
Too hard to follow
- By J. Freeman on 06-03-23
By: Cristina García
-
Transcription
- A Novel
- By: Kate Atkinson
- Narrated by: Fenella Woolgar
- Length: 11 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1940, 18-year-old Juliet Armstrong is reluctantly recruited into the world of espionage. Sent to an obscure department of MI5 tasked with monitoring the comings and goings of British Fascist sympathizers, she discovers the work to be by turns both tedious and terrifying. But after the war has ended, she presumes the events of those years have been relegated to the past forever. Ten years later, now a radio producer at the BBC, Juliet is unexpectedly confronted by figures from her past. A different war is being fought now, but Juliet finds herself once more under threat.
-
-
A very satisfying two days!
- By Frances on 09-30-18
By: Kate Atkinson
-
Walk the Blue Fields
- Stories
- By: Claire Keegan
- Narrated by: Aidan Kelly, Aoife McMahon, Aidan Quinn
- Length: 5 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Claire Keegan continues her outstanding work with this new collection of quietly wrenching stories of despair and desire in modern-day Ireland. A writer awarded a stay to work in Heinrich Böll's old cottage has her peace interrupted by an unwelcome intruder whose ulterior motives emerge as the night progresses. A priest waits at the altar to perform a marriage—and battles his memories of a love affair that led him to question all to which he has dedicated his life. And a man seeks solace at the bottom of a bottle as he mourns both his empty life and his lost love.
-
-
Just Superb.
- By Deborah on 12-09-22
By: Claire Keegan
-
My Phantoms
- By: Gwendoline Riley
- Narrated by: Hannah Curtis
- Length: 4 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Helen Grant is a mystery to her daughter. An extrovert with few friends who has sought intimacy in the wrong places, a twice-divorced mother of two now living alone surrounded by her memories, Helen (known to her acquaintances as “Hen”) has always haunted Bridget. Now, Bridget is an academic in her forties. She sees Helen once a year, and considers the problem to be contained. As she looks back on their tumultuous relationship—the performances and small deceptions—she tries to reckon with the cruelties inflicted on both sides.
-
-
Brilliant Fiction
- By CB on 08-22-23
By: Gwendoline Riley
-
Takes One to Know One
- By: Susan Isaacs
- Narrated by: Mia Barron
- Length: 13 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Just a few years ago, Corie Geller was busting terrorists as an agent for the FBI. But at 35, she traded in her badge for the stability of marriage and motherhood. On Wednesdays, she has lunch with her fellow Shorehaven freelancers at a so-so French restaurant, where she senses that something's off. Pete Delaney, a milquetoast package designer, always shows up early, sits in the same spot (often with a different phone in hand), and keeps one eye on the Jeep he parks in the lot across the street. Corie intuitively feels that Pete is hiding something....
-
-
Struggled to stay with the story
- By M. Dunn on 10-14-19
By: Susan Isaacs
-
Commonwealth
- By: Ann Patchett
- Narrated by: Hope Davis
- Length: 10 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
One Sunday afternoon in Southern California, Bert Cousins shows up at Franny Keating's christening party uninvited. Before evening falls, he has kissed Franny's mother, Beverly - thus setting in motion the dissolution of their marriages and the joining of two families.
-
-
Patchett and Me--In-sympatico
- By Mel on 09-18-16
By: Ann Patchett
-
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
- By: Junot Diaz
- Narrated by: Jonathan Davis, Staci Snell
- Length: 16 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Oscar is a sweet but disastrously overweight ghetto nerd who—from the New Jersey home he shares with his old world mother and rebellious sister—dreams of becoming the Dominican J.R.R. Tolkien and, most of all, finding love. But Oscar may never get what he wants. Blame the fukú—a curse that has haunted Oscar’s family for generations, following them on their epic journey from Santo Domingo to the USA.
-
-
Wondrous Book!!!
- By Robert on 06-22-12
By: Junot Diaz
-
The Identicals
- A Novel
- By: Elin Hilderbrand
- Narrated by: Erin Bennett
- Length: 12 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Nantucket is only 11 miles away from Martha's Vineyard. But they may as well be worlds apart for estranged twin sisters Harper and Tabitha Frost. After not speaking for more than a decade, Harper and Tabitha switch islands - and lives - to save what's left of their splintered family. But the twins quickly discover that the secrets, lies, and gossip they thought they'd outrun can travel between islands just as easily as they can. Will Harper and Tabitha be able to bury the hatchet and end their sibling rivalry once and for all?
-
-
No longer a fan... and Huskies definitely do shed!
- By ROBIN on 06-19-17
By: Elin Hilderbrand
-
The Thirteenth Tale
- A Novel
- By: Diane Setterfield
- Narrated by: Bianca Amato, Jill Tanner
- Length: 15 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
All children mythologize their birth... So begins the prologue of reclusive author Vida Winter's beloved collection of stories, long famous for the mystery of the missing thirteenth tale. The enigmatic Winter has always kept her violent and tragic past a secret. Now old and ailing, she summons a biographer to tell the truth about her extraordinary life: Margaret Lea, a young woman for whom the secret of her own birth remains an ever-present pain.
-
-
Simply Amazing Story--2 missing chapters
- By JE on 01-28-10
-
With or Without You
- A Memoir
- By: Domenica Ruta
- Narrated by: Domenica Ruta
- Length: 7 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Domenica Ruta grew up in a working-class, unforgiving Italian town north of Boston where in the seventeenth century women were hanged as witches. Her mother, Kathi, a notorious figure in this hardscrabble place, was a drug addict and sometime dealer whose life swung between welfare and riches, whose highbrow taste was at odds with her base appetites.
-
-
A real and riveting story-beautifully written
- By Courtney on 03-02-13
By: Domenica Ruta
-
Five-Carat Soul
- By: James McBride
- Narrated by: Arthur Morey, Nile Bullock, Prentice Onayemi, and others
- Length: 8 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The stories in Five-Carat Soul - none of them ever published before - spring from the place where identity, humanity, and history converge. They’re funny and poignant, insightful and unpredictable, imaginative and authentic - all told with McBride’s unrivaled storytelling skill and meticulous eye for character and detail. McBride explores the ways we learn from the world and the people around us. An antiques dealer discovers that a legendary toy commissioned by Civil War General Robert E. Lee now sits in the home of a black minister in Queens.
-
-
Listen. Just listen.
- By Rebbe Don Justino on 12-26-17
By: James McBride
Related to this topic
-
Chanel Bonfire
- By: Wendy Lawless
- Narrated by: Wendy Lawless
- Length: 6 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
By the time Wendy Lawless turned 17, she'd known for quite some time that she didn't have a normal mother. But that didn't stop her from wanting one.... Georgann Rea didn't bake cookies or go to PTA meetings; she wore a mink coat and always had a lit Dunhill plugged into her cigarette holder. She went through men like Kleenex, and didn't like dogs or children. Georgann had the ice queen beauty of a Hitchcock heroine and the cold heart to match.
-
-
Not an Engaging Listen
- By Sobriquet on 03-13-13
By: Wendy Lawless
-
Chelsea Girls
- A Novel
- By: Eileen Myles
- Narrated by: Eileen Myles
- Length: 6 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this breathtakingly inventive autobiographical novel, Eileen Myles transforms life into a work of art. Told in her audacious voice, made vivid and immediate in her lyrical language, Chelsea Girls cobbles together memories of Myles's 1960s Catholic upbringing with an alcoholic father, her volatile adolescence, her unabashed "lesbianity," and her riotous pursuit of survival as a poet in 1970s New York.
-
-
fascinatingly skanky
- By Megon J. Walker on 07-15-16
By: Eileen Myles
-
Tiger, Tiger
- A Memoir
- By: Margaux Fragoso
- Narrated by: Susan Bennett
- Length: 12 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
One summer day, Margaux Fragoso meets Peter Curran at the neighborhood swimming pool, and they begin to play. She is seven; he is 51. When Peter invites her and her mother to his house, the little girl finds a child’s paradise of exotic pets and an elaborate backyard garden. Her mother, beset by mental illness and overwhelmed by caring for Margaux, is grateful for the attention Peter lavishes on her, and he creates an imaginative universe for her, much as Lewis Carroll did for his real-life Alice.
-
-
a weirdly loving diatribe against pervs.
- By Dane Flakeman on 05-21-11
By: Margaux Fragoso
-
Miss Fortune
- Fresh Perspectives on Having It All from Someone Who Is Not Okay
- By: Lauren Weedman
- Narrated by: Lauren Weedman
- Length: 8 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Lauren Weedman is not okay. She's living what should be the good life in sunny Los Angeles. After a gig as a correspondent with The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, she scored parts in blockbuster movies, which led to memorable recurring roles on HBO's Hung and Looking. She had a loving husband and an adorable baby boy. In these comedic essays, she turns a piercingly observant, darkly funny lens on the ways her life is actually not okay.
-
-
Good
- By Ajules29 on 04-02-16
By: Lauren Weedman
-
God-Shaped Hole
- A Novel
- By: Tiffanie DeBartolo
- Narrated by: Rachael Warren
- Length: 10 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When Beatrice Trixie Jordan replies to a personal ad, she meets Jacob Grace, a charming, effervescent 30-something free-spirit writer passionately seeking life. He possesses his own turns of phrase and ways of thinking and feeling that dissonantly harmonize with Trixie's off-center vision. As they rollercoaster through the joys and furies of their wrenching romance, they try to come to terms with the hurt brought about by both of their distant fathers who, in different ways, forsook them.
-
-
To see a fortune teller or not to see one...
- By Renee on 08-08-18
-
If I am Missing or Dead
- A Sister's Story of Love, Murder, and Liberation
- By: Janine Latus
- Narrated by: Shelly Frasier
- Length: 8 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In April 2002, Janine Latus' youngest sister, Amy, wrote a note and taped it to the inside of her desk drawer. "Today Ron Ball and I are romantically involved", it read, "but I fear I have placed myself at risk in a variety of ways. Based on his criminal past, writing this out just seems like the smart thing to do. If I am missing or dead this obviously has not protected me...."
-
-
All About Janine
- By Ellen on 07-02-07
By: Janine Latus
-
Chanel Bonfire
- By: Wendy Lawless
- Narrated by: Wendy Lawless
- Length: 6 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
By the time Wendy Lawless turned 17, she'd known for quite some time that she didn't have a normal mother. But that didn't stop her from wanting one.... Georgann Rea didn't bake cookies or go to PTA meetings; she wore a mink coat and always had a lit Dunhill plugged into her cigarette holder. She went through men like Kleenex, and didn't like dogs or children. Georgann had the ice queen beauty of a Hitchcock heroine and the cold heart to match.
-
-
Not an Engaging Listen
- By Sobriquet on 03-13-13
By: Wendy Lawless
-
Chelsea Girls
- A Novel
- By: Eileen Myles
- Narrated by: Eileen Myles
- Length: 6 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this breathtakingly inventive autobiographical novel, Eileen Myles transforms life into a work of art. Told in her audacious voice, made vivid and immediate in her lyrical language, Chelsea Girls cobbles together memories of Myles's 1960s Catholic upbringing with an alcoholic father, her volatile adolescence, her unabashed "lesbianity," and her riotous pursuit of survival as a poet in 1970s New York.
-
-
fascinatingly skanky
- By Megon J. Walker on 07-15-16
By: Eileen Myles
-
Tiger, Tiger
- A Memoir
- By: Margaux Fragoso
- Narrated by: Susan Bennett
- Length: 12 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
One summer day, Margaux Fragoso meets Peter Curran at the neighborhood swimming pool, and they begin to play. She is seven; he is 51. When Peter invites her and her mother to his house, the little girl finds a child’s paradise of exotic pets and an elaborate backyard garden. Her mother, beset by mental illness and overwhelmed by caring for Margaux, is grateful for the attention Peter lavishes on her, and he creates an imaginative universe for her, much as Lewis Carroll did for his real-life Alice.
-
-
a weirdly loving diatribe against pervs.
- By Dane Flakeman on 05-21-11
By: Margaux Fragoso
-
Miss Fortune
- Fresh Perspectives on Having It All from Someone Who Is Not Okay
- By: Lauren Weedman
- Narrated by: Lauren Weedman
- Length: 8 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Lauren Weedman is not okay. She's living what should be the good life in sunny Los Angeles. After a gig as a correspondent with The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, she scored parts in blockbuster movies, which led to memorable recurring roles on HBO's Hung and Looking. She had a loving husband and an adorable baby boy. In these comedic essays, she turns a piercingly observant, darkly funny lens on the ways her life is actually not okay.
-
-
Good
- By Ajules29 on 04-02-16
By: Lauren Weedman
-
God-Shaped Hole
- A Novel
- By: Tiffanie DeBartolo
- Narrated by: Rachael Warren
- Length: 10 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When Beatrice Trixie Jordan replies to a personal ad, she meets Jacob Grace, a charming, effervescent 30-something free-spirit writer passionately seeking life. He possesses his own turns of phrase and ways of thinking and feeling that dissonantly harmonize with Trixie's off-center vision. As they rollercoaster through the joys and furies of their wrenching romance, they try to come to terms with the hurt brought about by both of their distant fathers who, in different ways, forsook them.
-
-
To see a fortune teller or not to see one...
- By Renee on 08-08-18
-
If I am Missing or Dead
- A Sister's Story of Love, Murder, and Liberation
- By: Janine Latus
- Narrated by: Shelly Frasier
- Length: 8 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In April 2002, Janine Latus' youngest sister, Amy, wrote a note and taped it to the inside of her desk drawer. "Today Ron Ball and I are romantically involved", it read, "but I fear I have placed myself at risk in a variety of ways. Based on his criminal past, writing this out just seems like the smart thing to do. If I am missing or dead this obviously has not protected me...."
-
-
All About Janine
- By Ellen on 07-02-07
By: Janine Latus
-
Disgruntled
- By: Asali Solomon
- Narrated by: Bahni Turpin
- Length: 9 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Kenya Curtis is only eight years old, but she knows that she's different, even if she can't put her finger on how or why. It's not because she's black - most of the other students in the fourth-grade class at her West Philadelphia elementary school are, too. Maybe it's because she calls her father - a housepainter-slash-philosopher - "Baba" or because her parents' friends gather to pour out libations "from the Creator, for the Martyrs" and discuss "the community".
-
-
Loved It!!!
- By ayodele higgs on 05-20-15
By: Asali Solomon
-
Saints for All Occasions
- A Novel
- By: J. Courtney Sullivan
- Narrated by: Susan Denaker
- Length: 15 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Nora and Theresa Flynn are 21 and 17 when they leave their small village in Ireland and journey to America. Nora is the responsible sister; she's shy and serious and engaged to a man she isn't sure that she loves. Theresa is gregarious; she is thrilled by their new life in Boston and besotted with the fashionable dresses and dance halls on Dudley Street. But when Theresa ends up pregnant, Nora is forced to come up with a plan - a decision with repercussions they are both far too young to understand.
-
-
The narration ruined it
- By Janis Reynolds on 06-12-17
-
Bettyville
- By: George Hodgman
- Narrated by: Jeff Woodman
- Length: 10 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When George Hodgman leaves Manhattan for his hometown of Paris, Missouri, he finds himself - an unlikely caretaker and near-lethal cook - in a head-on collision with his aging mother, Betty, a woman of wit and will. Will George lure her into assisted living? When hell freezes over. He can't bring himself to force her from the home both treasure - the place where his father's voice lingers, the scene of shared jokes, skirmishes, and, behind the dusty antiques, a rarely acknowledged conflict...
-
-
Title Should Be Georgeville-It's All About George
- By Sara on 10-08-15
By: George Hodgman
-
How to Be an American Housewife
- A Novel
- By: Margaret Dilloway
- Narrated by: Laural Merlington, Emily Durante
- Length: 7 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
How to Be an American Housewife is a novel about mothers and daughters and the pull of tradition. It tells the story of Shoko, a Japanese woman who married an American GI, and her grown daughter, Sue, a divorced mother whose life as an American housewife hasn't been what she'd expected. When illness prevents Shoko from traveling to Japan, she asks Sue to go in her place. The trip reveals family secrets that change their lives in dramatic and unforeseen ways.
-
-
big disappointment
- By Kirsten on 04-12-12
-
Some Girls
- My Life in a Harem
- By: Jillian Lauren
- Narrated by: Tavia Gilbert
- Length: 8 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A jaw-dropping story of how a girl from the suburbs ends up in a prince's harem and emerges from the secret Xanadu both richer and wiser. At 18, Jillian Lauren was an NYU theater school dropout with a tip about an upcoming audition. The "casting director" told her that a rich businessman would pay pretty girls $20,000 if they stayed for two weeks to spice up his parties. Soon, Jillian was on a plane to Borneo, where she would spend the next 18 months in the harem of Prince Jefri Bolkiah....
-
-
Boring, Pretentious Book
- By Marcos on 04-23-11
By: Jillian Lauren
-
The Wangs vs. the World
- By: Jade Chang
- Narrated by: Nancy Wu
- Length: 14 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Charles Wang is mad at America. A brash, lovable immigrant businessman who built a cosmetics empire and made a fortune, he's just been ruined by the financial crisis. Now all Charles wants is to get his kids safely stowed away so that he can go to China and attempt to reclaim his family's ancestral lands - and his pride. Outrageously funny and full of charm, The Wangs vs. the World is an entirely fresh look at what it means to belong in America - and how going from glorious riches to (still name-brand) rags brings one family together in a way money never could.
-
-
Spectacular
- By Barbara on 10-11-16
By: Jade Chang
-
True Stories from an Unreliable Eyewitness
- A Feminist Coming of Age
- By: Christine Lahti
- Narrated by: Christine Lahti
- Length: 5 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
For decades, actress and director Christine Lahti has captivated the hearts and minds of her audience through iconic roles in Chicago Hope, Running on Empty, Housekeeping, And Justice for All, Swing Shift, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, God of Carnage, and The Blacklist. Now, in True Stories from an Unreliable Eyewitness, this acclaimed performer channels her creativity inward to share her own story for the first time.
-
-
Christine Lahti, Actress, Activist and A+ Author!
- By L. Cat Schultz on 10-26-18
By: Christine Lahti
-
Orange Mint and Honey
- By: Carleen Brice
- Narrated by: Cherise Booth
- Length: 8 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
After grad school, Shay Dixon feels like she's had enough for awhile. Inspired by her spiritual adviser - a soul-soothing blues player named Nina Simon - Shay calls her estranged mother Nona for the first time in years, and shocks herself by asking if it would be okay to come home for a while.
-
-
One For The Money
- By DiaRose on 09-25-17
By: Carleen Brice
-
The Opposite of Loneliness
- Essays and Stories
- By: Marina Keegan
- Narrated by: Emily Woo Zeller
- Length: 5 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Marina Keegan's star was on the rise when she graduated magna cum laude from Yale in May 2012. She had a play that was to be produced at the New York International Fringe Festival and a job waiting for her at the New Yorker. Tragically, five days after graduation, Marina died in a car crash. Even though she was just 22 when she died, Marina left behind a rich, expansive trove of prose that, like her title essay, captures the hope, uncertainty, and possibility of her generation.
-
-
Probably buy the book too.
- By Soupergirl on 09-14-15
By: Marina Keegan
-
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
-
She's Come Undone
- By: Wally Lamb
- Narrated by: Linda Stephens
- Length: 18 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Meet Dolores Price. She's 13, wise-mouthed but wounded, having bid her childhood goodbye. Beached like a whale in front of her bedroom TV, she spends the next few years nourishing herself with the Mallomars, potato chips, and Pepsi her anxious mother supplies. When she finally rolls into young womanhood at 257 pounds, Dolores is no stronger and life is no kinder. But this time she's determined to rise to the occasion and give herself one more chance before really going belly-up.
-
-
Really disappointing narrator!
- By Jessica Williams on 01-21-12
By: Wally Lamb
-
Fairyland
- A Memoir of My Father
- By: Alysia Abbott
- Narrated by: Alysia Abbott
- Length: 10 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A beautiful, vibrant memoir about growing up motherless in 1970s and 80s San Francisco with an openly gay father. After his wife dies in a car accident, bisexual writer and activist Steve Abbott moves with his two-year-old daughter to San Francisco. There they discover a city in the midst of revolution, bustling with gay men in search of liberation - few of whom are raising a child. Steve throws himself into San Francisco's vibrant cultural scene.
-
-
Great representation of the time
- By AvidReader22 on 06-07-19
By: Alysia Abbott