What I Found in a Thousand Towns
A Traveling Musician's Guide to Rebuilding America's Communities-One Coffee Shop, Dog Run, and Open-Mike Night at a Time
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Narrated by:
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Dar Williams
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By:
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Dar Williams
About this listen
A beloved folk singer presents an impassioned account of the fall and rise of the small American towns she cherishes. Dubbed by the New Yorker as "one of America's very best singer-songwriters", Dar Williams has made her career not in stadiums, but touring America's small towns. She has played their venues, composed in their coffee shops, and drunk in their bars. She has seen these communities struggle, but also seen them thrive in the face of postindustrial identity crises. Here, in an account that "reads as if Pete Seeger and Jane Jacobs teamed up" (New York Times), Williams muses on why some towns flourish while others fail, examining elements from the significance of history and nature to the uniting power of public spaces and food. Drawing on her own travels and the work of urban theorists, Williams offers real solutions to rebuild declining communities.
What I Found in a Thousand Towns is more than a love letter to America's small towns, it's a deeply personal and hopeful message about the potential of America's lively and resilient communities.
©2017 Dar Williams (P)2017 Hachette AudioListeners also enjoyed...
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- How the Restless Generation Will Change Their Country and the World
- By: Zak Dychtwald
- Narrated by: Zak Dychtwald
- Length: 8 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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A close-up look at the Chinese generation born after 1990, exploring through personal encounters how young Chinese feel about everything from money and sex to their government, the West, and China’s shifting role in the world - not to mention their love affair with food, karaoke, and travel. Set primarily in the Eastern 2nd tier city of Suzhou and the budding Western metropolis of Chengdu, the book charts the touchstone issues this young generation faces.
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Erudite, enthralling, and engaging!
- By Anonymous User on 03-22-19
By: Zak Dychtwald
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The End of the Suburbs
- Where the American Dream is Moving
- By: Leigh Gallagher
- Narrated by: Jessica Geffen
- Length: 7 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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For nearly 70 years, the suburbs were as American as apple pie. But in recent years things have started to change. An epic housing crisis revealed existing problems with this unique pattern of development, while the steady pull of long-simmering economic, societal and demographic forces has culminated in a Perfect Storm that has led to a profound shift in the way we desire to live. In The End of the Suburbs journalist Leigh Gallagher traces the rise and fall of American suburbia from the stately railroad suburbs that sprung up outside American cities in the 19th and early 20th centuries to current-day sprawling exurbs.
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Informative, but the title is a lie
- By Marie on 08-27-13
By: Leigh Gallagher
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One Little Spark!
- Mickey's Ten Commandments and the Road to Imagineering
- By: Marty Sklar
- Narrated by: Jeff Cummings
- Length: 5 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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We've all read about the experts: the artists, the scientists, the engineers - that special group of people known as Imagineers for The Walt Disney Company. But who are they? How did they join the team? What is it like to spend a day in their shoes?
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More like a collection of emails.
- By J on 02-19-18
By: Marty Sklar
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Chicken Soup for Entrepreneur's Soul: Advice and Inspiration for Fulfilling Dreams
- By: Jack Canfield, Mark Victor Hansen
- Narrated by: Alan Robertson
- Length: 8 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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Chicken Soup for the Entrepreneur's Soul is a compilation of short stories from entrepreneurs, both large and small, who share their experiences of success, failure and courage, with a little helpful advice mixed in. Many of these stories, told for the first time here, will enlighten you to new methods of entrepreneurship or simply help you believe in the possibilities of getting started.
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Great!
- By Anonymous User on 03-01-20
By: Jack Canfield, and others
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The Contemporaries
- Travels in the 21st-Century Art World
- By: Roger White
- Narrated by: Tom Parks
- Length: 8 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
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From young artists trying to elbow their way in to those working hard at dropping out, White's essential audiobook offers a once-in-a-generation glimpse of the inner workings of the American art world at a moment of unparalleled ambition, uncertainty, and creative exuberance.
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Mispronunciations Spoil This Reading!
- By Jenny Jenkins on 06-17-15
By: Roger White
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The Nature of the Game
- Links Golf at Bandon Dunes and Far Beyond
- By: Mike Keiser, Stephen Goodwin
- Narrated by: Rob Shapiro
- Length: 10 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
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An avid golfer with a demanding career in the greeting card business, Mike Keiser found a new calling on the authentic links courses of Scotland and Ireland. Seized by the beauty of the landscape and the holes running through it, he determined this was how golf was meant to be: inclusive, not private; played on foot, not riding a cart; the courses natural, neither lavish nor contrived. Vowing to transplant this experience to the States, Keiser entered the golf business and, ignoring the advice of experts, built a true links course in Oregon.
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Fantastic book, well written and narrated
- By AVJ on 11-24-23
By: Mike Keiser, and others
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China's Second Continent
- How a Million Migrants Are Building a New Empire in Africa
- By: Howard W. French
- Narrated by: Don Hagen
- Length: 10 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
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An exciting, hugely revealing account of China’s burgeoning presence in Africa - a developing empire already shaping, and reshaping, the future of millions of people. A prizewinning foreign correspondent and former New York Times bureau chief in Shanghai and in West and Central Africa, Howard French is uniquely positioned to tell the story of China in Africa. Through meticulous on-the-ground reporting, French crafts a layered investigation of astonishing depth and breadth.
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He knows Both Africa and China
- By Malick Tchakpedeou on 12-01-16
By: Howard W. French
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Sign My Name to Freedom
- A Memoir of a Pioneering Life
- By: Betty Reid-Soskin
- Narrated by: Betty Reid-Soskin
- Length: 8 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
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In Betty Reid Soskin’s 96 years of living, she has been a witness to a grand sweep of American history. When she was born in 1921, the lynching of African-Americans was a national epidemic, blackface minstrel shows were the most popular American form of entertainment, white women had only just won the right to vote, and most African-Americans in the Deep South could not vote at all. From her great-grandmother, who had been enslaved until her mid-20s, Betty heard stories of slavery and the times of terror and struggle for Black folk that followed.
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How she stressed Creole, but I guess it was a badge if honor not being regular black.
- By Satisfied customer on 05-21-24
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Happy City
- Transforming Our Lives Through Urban Design
- By: Charles Montgomery
- Narrated by: Patrick Lawlor
- Length: 12 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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After decades of unchecked sprawl, more people than ever are moving back to the city. Dense urban living has been prescribed as a panacea for the environmental and resource crises of our time. But is it better or worse for our happiness? Are subways, sidewalks, and tower dwelling improvements on the car dependence of sprawl?
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Great book-terrible narrator
- By Amazon Customer on 02-04-19
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The Blue Sweater
- Bridging the Gap between Rich and Poor in an Interconnected World
- By: Jacqueline Novogratz
- Narrated by: Jacqueline Novogratz
- Length: 10 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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The Blue Sweater is the inspiring story of a woman who left a career in international banking to spend her life on a quest to understand global poverty. It all started back home in Virginia, with the blue sweater, a gift that quickly became her prized possession - until the day she outgrew it and gave it away to Goodwill. Eleven years later in Africa, she spotted a young boy wearing that very sweater, with her name still on the tag inside.
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A Heartfelt Testament
- By Gallantly Rabbit! on 01-23-11
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The Not-Quite States of America
- Dispatches from the Territories and Other Far-Flung Outposts of the USA
- By: Doug Mack
- Narrated by: Jonathan Yen
- Length: 10 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
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Everyone knows that the United States of America is made up of 50 states and, uh...some other stuff. The territories of American Samoa, Guam, Puerto Rico, the Northern Mariana Islands, and the US Virgin Islands are often neglected, but they are filled with American flags and national parks and US post offices and some four million people, many of whom are as proudly red-white-and-blue as any Daughter of the American Revolution.
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Worthwhile Learning
- By Bessie Mae on 05-02-23
By: Doug Mack
What listeners say about What I Found in a Thousand Towns
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Vicki
- 02-08-19
Loved this book!
Dar is the consummate story teller whether it be through her songs or books. This book makes you look around at your own community with a critical eye towards evaluating & rebuilding your community. You get the added bonus of Dar as the story teller performing the narration of the book. Best part was when she told a story about a concert she did in St. Pete FL that I actually attended! Loved it & recommend!
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- Amazon Customer
- 10-12-21
An absolutely necessary read
for everyone who lives in a community -- know anybody? -- its a must read
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- dkpitt
- 10-09-18
It’s Brilliant, simply brilliant!!!
This is definitely a must read book, god bless you! I will keep reading! Bye
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- Deb Striker
- 08-28-18
Thought provking
Listening to Dar read her book feels like sitting with her and chatting over a cup of tea. Insightful and filled with hope for out collective future, as well as providing simple ideas we can all build on.
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- D. Frrazier
- 02-11-21
Three or four stars.
I love Dar Williams' music. I stumbled across this book and was quite surprised that Dar had written it. So I give it four stars for Dar completely surprising me with her insights into urban planning and ability to write a pretty decent book. But if you are comparing this to all the books out there, or even all the urban planning books out there, I'm not sure it really deserves four stars. Maybe. I honestly don't read too many urban planning books. This book is for people who are really interested in what makes communities tick, and how to make them tick better. (It is not necessarily for people who have ticks …) One thing to know about this book is that it is largely focused on New York and the Northeast. It does talk about some towns in the West and Midwest, but probably because Dar has long lived in the Northeast, many of the examples given come from this area. You will learn about the value of rehabilitating neglected waterfronts, and the importance of creating viable venues for artists, why the history of a town may be one of its hidden assets, and many other lessons along these lines. While the book seems well organized, carefully researched, and well written, ultimately I did not find the subject matter that compelling. My attention started to drift away. But perhaps I am not really the right target audience for the book. My favorite parts of the book involved Dar's anecdote's about her experiences on the road. I feel like she probably has more books she could write on other topics and some of them might resonate more with a broader audience. I also think she is a good narrator, though sometimes she reads too fast. So if she ever wanted to, she could probably start a new career reading recorded books.
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1 person found this helpful