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Words Will Break Cement
- The Passion of Pussy Riot
- Narrated by: Carrington MacDuffie
- Length: 7 hrs and 56 mins
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Publisher's summary
The heroic story of Pussy Riot, who resurrected the power of truth in a society built on lies.
On February 21, 2012, five young women entered the Cathedral of Christ the Savior in Moscow. In neon-colored dresses, tights, and balaclavas, they performed a “punk prayer” beseeching the “Mother of God” to “get rid of Putin.” They were quickly shut down by security, and in the weeks and months that followed, three of the women were arrested and tried, and two were sentenced to a remote prison colony. But the incident captured international headlines, and footage of it went viral. People across the globe recognized not only a fierce act of political confrontation but also an inspired work of art that, in a time and place saturated with lies, found a new way to speak the truth.
Masha Gessen’s riveting account tells how such a phenomenon came about. Drawing on her exclusive, extensive access to the members of Pussy Riot and their families and associates, she reconstructs the fascinating personal journeys that transformed a group of young women into artists with a shared vision, gave them the courage and imagination to express it unforgettably, and endowed them with the strength to endure the devastating loneliness and isolation that have been the price of their triumph.
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Award-winning journalist Masha Gessen's understanding of the events and forces that have wracked Russia in recent times is unparalleled. In The Future Is History, Gessen follows the lives of four people born at what promised to be the dawn of democracy. Each of them came of age with unprecedented expectations, some as the children and grandchildren of the very architects of the new Russia, each with newfound aspirations of their own - as entrepreneurs, activists, thinkers, and writers, sexual and social beings.
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The author is an international treasure
- By ThreeGems on 10-16-17
By: Masha Gessen
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The Good Mothers
- The True Story of the Women Who Took on The World's Most Powerful Mafia
- By: Alex Perry
- Narrated by: Eva Alexander
- Length: 10 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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We live in their buildings, work in their companies, shop in their stores, eat in their restaurants and elect politicians they fund. Founded more than 150 years ago by shepherding families in the toe of Italy, the 'Ndrangheta is today the world's most powerful mafia, with a crushing presence in Southern Italy, a market-moving size in global finance and a reach that extends to 50 countries around the world. And yet, remarkably, few of us have ever heard of it.
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Superb narration of a stunningly well written book
- By Anne Grant on 10-15-19
By: Alex Perry
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Between Two Worlds
- My Life and Captivity in Iran
- By: Roxana Saberi
- Narrated by: Roxana Saberi
- Length: 9 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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On the morning of January 31, 2009, Roxana Saberi, a brilliant and fearless Iranian American journalist working in Iran, was dragged from her home by four men and secretly arrested. The intelligence agents who captured her accused her of espionage---a charge she denied. For 11 days, Saberi was cut off from the outside world, forbidden even a phone call. For weeks, neither her family, friends, nor colleagues had any knowledge of her whereabouts.
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A Gripping and Tender Story
- By S on 04-11-10
By: Roxana Saberi
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Bending Toward Justice
- The Birmingham Church Bombing That Changed the Course of Civil Rights
- By: Doug Jones, Greg Truman, Rick Bragg - foreword
- Narrated by: Doug Jones
- Length: 15 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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On September 15, 1963, the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, AL, was bombed, killing four young girls. Who were the perpetrators? Due to reluctant witnesses and racial prejudice, the FBI closed the case without any indictments. But as Martin Luther King, Jr., claimed, "the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice." Bending Toward Justice is a detailed account of this key moment in our national struggle for equality and the long road to prosecuting those responsible for the tragedy, related by an author who played a major role in the investigation.
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Great piece of History
- By rita on 03-08-19
By: Doug Jones, and others
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Hate Crime
- The Story of a Dragging in Jasper, Texas
- By: Joyce King
- Narrated by: Jennifer Van Dyck
- Length: 7 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
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On June 7, 1998, James Byrd, Jr., a 49-year-old black man, was dragged to his death while chained to the back of a pickup truck driven by three young white men. It happened just outside of Jasper, a sleepy East Texas logging town that, within 24 hours of the discovery of the murder, would be inextricably linked in the nation's imagination to an exceptionally brutal, modern-day lynching. In this superbly written examination of the murder and its aftermath, award-winning journalist Joyce King brings us on a journey that begins at the crime scene.
By: Joyce King
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Good Kids, Bad City
- A Story of Race and Wrongful Conviction in America
- By: Kyle Swenson
- Narrated by: J. D. Jackson
- Length: 11 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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In the early 1970s, three African American men - Wiley Bridgeman, Kwame Ajamu, and Rickey Jackson - were accused and convicted of the brutal robbery and murder of a man outside of a convenience store in Cleveland, Ohio. Almost four decades later, the men were exonerated. But while their exoneration may have ended one of American history’s most disgraceful miscarriages of justice, the corruption and decay of the city responsible for their imprisonment remain on trial.
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Life is not fair, but the hearts of these men!
- By Maureen Delaney on 03-24-19
By: Kyle Swenson
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Unholy Messenger
- The Life and Crimes of the BTK Serial Killer
- By: Stephen Singular
- Narrated by: Alan Sklar
- Length: 10 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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To all appearances, Dennis Rader was a model citizen in the small town of Park City, Kansas, where he had lived with his family almost his entire life. He was a town compliance officer, a former Boy Scout leader, the president of his church congregation, and a seemingly ordinary father and husband. But Rader's average life belied the existence of his dark, sadistic other self: he was the BTK serial killer.
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It's a Christian Book!!
- By Nick on 07-07-16
By: Stephen Singular
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Out of Mao's Shadow
- The Struggle for the Soul of a New China
- By: Philip P. Pan
- Narrated by: David Colacci
- Length: 13 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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Prize-winning journalist Philip P. Pan offers an unprecedented inside look at the momentous battle underway for China's future. On one side is the entrenched party elite determined to preserve its authoritarian grip on power. On the other is a collection of lawyers, journalists, entrepreneurs, activists, hustlers, and dreamers striving to build a more tolerant, open, and democratic China.
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Great insight into changes in China
- By Paul on 04-14-09
By: Philip P. Pan
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The House of Government
- A Saga of the Russian Revolution
- By: Yuri Slezkine, Claire Bloom - director
- Narrated by: Stefan Rudnicki
- Length: 45 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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On the 100th anniversary of the Russian Revolution, the epic story of an enormous apartment building where Communist true believers lived before their destruction. The House of Government is unlike any other book about the Russian Revolution and the Soviet experiment.
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Inside saga of the leaders of Bolshevism & the USSR
- By Edward V. Blanchard on 11-05-17
By: Yuri Slezkine, and others
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Getting Life
- An Innocent Man’s 25-Year Journey from Prison to Peace
- By: Michael Morton
- Narrated by: Roger Wayne
- Length: 9 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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On August 13, 1986, just one day after his 32nd birthday, Michael Morton went to work at his usual time. By the end of the day, his wife Christine had been savagely bludgeoned to death in the couple's bed - and the Williamson County Sherriff's office in Texas wasted no time in pinning her murder on Michael, despite an absolute lack of physical evidence. Michael was swiftly sentenced to life in prison for a crime he had not committed
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A must read
- By Kevlar314 on 04-23-15
By: Michael Morton
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People Who Eat Darkness
- The True Story of a Young Woman Who Vanished from the Streets of Tokyo - and the Evil That Swallowed Her Up
- By: Richard Lloyd Parry
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 13 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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Lucie Blackman - tall, blond, 21 years old - stepped out into the vastness of Tokyo in the summer of 2000 and disappeared. The following winter, her dismembered remains were found buried in a seaside cave. The seven months in between had seen a massive search for the missing girl involving Japanese policemen, British private detectives, and Lucie’s desperate but bitterly divided parents. Had Lucie been abducted by a religious cult or snatched by human traffickers? Who was the mysterious man she had gone to meet? And what did her work as a hostess in the notorious Roppongi district of Tokyo really involve?
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This is the audiobook against I rate all others.
- By El_Ron on 03-08-13
What listeners say about Words Will Break Cement
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- ElizaMo
- 06-30-22
Morgonster
lots of garbled little skips (editing?) voids of words with contextually important meaning for the feminist thought
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- Hollis
- 07-07-18
Idealism No Match Against KGB Pragmatism
I am so relieved to have read this book. Masha Gessen knows whereof they speak. I will be reading their other books, one by one, something I anticipate with an undertone of dread. this is real life, and it doesn't end happily ever after … not yet, at least. My one regret is that Gessen didn’t narrate.
Putin's presence in this book about the Pussy Riot performance art punk prayer and its repercussions is not tangible; it's felt strongly, though, as if he were Sauron looking into a Palantir in Mordor. Yes, it's THAT creepy.
To anybody — like Trump — who thinks Putin is an okay guy, read the part that takes place in the penal colonies. If you have any background studying the Holocaust, it'll sound very familiar. These women and men are courageous and indefatigable. We here in America need them more than Russia wants them. But Russia is their Rodina, and I don't see them giving up on her. Lucky for Russia, bad for Putin. And that's a Good Thing.
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- Emeri Burks
- 08-30-22
Therapy in these authoritarian times
Although the ending leaves a bitters a sweet taste in the mouth, the life and times of Pussy Riot members reminds the reader of the value and power of the revolutionary spirit. Even jailed, members sought to improve their small patch of scorched earth - a reminder to all who feel there's nothing that can be done in these bleak times.
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- Tim Zuellig
- 03-30-21
Really wanted to love this
First, I really like Pussy Riot, and what they do socially. But, what really was poor about this title was that it was 90% reading from trial transcripts, and maybe, MAYBE 10% learning what drives the girls. With Masha Gessen at the helm here, I was expecting much more than just a historical re-telling of "what happened," mostly during the sham that passed for a trial. I know enough about the state of Russia (my wife is from Siberia, all her family and friends still live there), and the politics of Putin and former regimes. But none of that was really explored here – if I were only familiar with the band and their small catalog of music, and wanted to learn what drives them, I still would have no idea.
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