American Wasteland
Stories by Alexander Shalom Joseph
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American Wasteland
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Narrated by:
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Matthew Spaur
About this listen
Alexander Shalom Joseph’s American Wasteland is a collection of stories about the contemporary day-to-day in America. It is said in the Talmud that one job of certain Jews is to justify the existence of humanity to God; in this collection, Joseph attempts to do just this with his stories, which speak to the everyday mundane and the vast richness in both meaning and meaninglessness that abound all around us.
In one story, a recent divorcée tries to find meaning on the Fourth of July, but ends up stuck in traffic. In another, a suburban man unhappy with his life becomes obsessed with washing his car at a 24-hour car wash in his neighborhood. In another, a young woman recollects her childhood with a single mother and how they used to paint their nails and eat breakfast together. In yet another, a single person suffers through a dinner party at which they are the fifth wheel.
These stories, vivid in detail, portray a stagnant land full of longing. They present a portrait of a country full of millions of lost people, trying to make sense of a world which can seem both crushing and light at the same time.
©2021 Alexander Shalom Joseph (P)2022 Alexander Shalom JosephListeners also enjoyed...
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-
Mixed Bag
- By AuntGert on 09-22-20
By: T. C. Boyle
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House of Sand and Fog
- By: Andre Dubus III
- Narrated by: Andre Dubus III, Fontaine Dollas Dubus
- Length: 13 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 1,020
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 600
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Story4 out of 5 stars 604
In this riveting novel of almost unbearable suspense, three fragile yet determined people become dangerously entangled in a relentlessly escalating crisis. Colonel Behrani, once a wealthy man in Iran, is now a struggling immigrant willing to bet everything he has to restore his family's dignity. Kathy Nicolo is a troubled young woman whose house is all she has left, and who refuses to let her hard-won stability slip away from her. Sheriff Lester Burdon becomes obsessed with helping her fight for justice.
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2 out of 5 stars
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I suspect I am going to be in the minority . . .
- By BogKid on 01-12-04
By: Andre Dubus III
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Turtle Moon
- By: Alice Hoffman
- Narrated by: Sandra Burr
- Length: 7 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 130
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 109
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Story4 out of 5 stars 109
Turtle Moon transports the listener to Verity, Florida, a place where anything can happen during the month of May, when migrating sea turtles come to town, mistaking the glow of the streetlights for the moon. A young single mother is murdered in her apartment and her baby is gone. Keith, a 12-year-old boy in the same apartment building also disappears. In pursuit of the baby, the boy and the killer, are Keith's divorced mother and a cop who himself was once considered the meanest boy in town.
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5 out of 5 stars
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An enchanting story
- By A.J. on 05-09-11
By: Alice Hoffman
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Battleborn
- By: Claire Vaye Watkins
- Narrated by: Ali Ahn, Morgan Hallett, Laura Knight Keating, and others
- Length: 8 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 50
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 40
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 39
Like the work of Cormac McCarthy, Denis Johnson, Richard Ford, and Annie Proulx, Battleborn represents a near-perfect confluence of sensibility and setting, and the introduction of an exceptionally powerful and original literary voice. In each of these ten unforgettable stories, Claire Vaye Watkins writes her way fearlessly into the mythology of the American West, utterly reimagining it.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Wonderful magnificent stories beautifully told
- By Pedro Ramirez on 12-03-15
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Homesick for Another World
- Stories
- By: Ottessa Moshfegh
- Narrated by: Alyssa Bresnahan, Richard Poe
- Length: 8 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 299
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 265
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Story4 out of 5 stars 265
There's something eerily unsettling about Ottessa Moshfegh's stories, something almost dangerous, while also being delightful and even laugh-out-loud funny. Her characters are all unsteady on their feet in one way or another; they all yearn for connection and betterment, though each in very different ways, but they are often tripped up by their own baser impulses and existential insecurities.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Funny, Dynamic Writing
- By Sofia Macht on 06-13-18
By: Ottessa Moshfegh
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I'll Be There
- By: Holly Goldberg Sloan
- Narrated by: Laura Jennings
- Length: 9 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 51
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 46
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 46
Emily Bell believes in destiny. To her, being forced to sing a solo in the church choir - despite her average voice - is fate: because it's while she's singing that she first sees Sam. At first sight they are connected. Sam Border wishes he could escape, but there's nowhere for him to run. He and his little brother, Riddle, have spent their entire lives constantly uprooted by their unstable father. As Sam and Riddle are welcomed into the Bells' lives, they witness the warmth and protection of a family for the first time.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Needs to be a film!
- By TreasureHunter on 06-25-16
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Like Family
- Growing Up in Other People's Houses, a Memoir
- By: Paula McLain
- Narrated by: Wendy Tremont King
- Length: 9 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 78
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 71
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Story4 out of 5 stars 72
This powerful and haunting memoir details the years Paula McLain and her two sisters spent as foster children after being abandoned by both parents in California in the early 1970s. As wards of the State, the sisters spent the next 14 years moving from foster home to foster home. The dislocations, confusions, and odd pleasures of an unrooted life form the basis of one of the most compelling memoirs in recent years - a book in the tradition of Jo Ann Beard's The Boys of My Youth and Mary Karr's The Liars' Club.
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5 out of 5 stars
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A famous writer describes her life growing up in foster care
- By Nancy C. on 12-21-18
By: Paula McLain
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One True Thing
- By: Anna Quindlen
- Narrated by: Christina Moore
- Length: 9 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 579
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 464
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 464
A young woman sits in jail, accused of the mercy killing of her dying mother. She didn't do it, but she thinks she knows who did. In the last months of her life, Ellen Gulden's mother revealed startling secrets that challenged everything Ellen believed about her family. Now, in jail, Ellen believes those secrets will tell her who had the courage to end her mother's suffering.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Quindlen's writing skills shine in One True Thing.
- By Bonny on 08-26-13
By: Anna Quindlen
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Speak No Evil
- A Novel
- By: Uzodinma Iweala
- Narrated by: Prentice Onayemi, Julia Whelan
- Length: 6 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 758
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 691
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 691
On the surface, Niru leads a charmed life. Raised by two attentive parents in Washington, DC, he's a top student and a track star at his prestigious private high school. Bound for Harvard in the fall, his prospects are bright. But Niru has a painful secret: He is queer - an abominable sin to his conservative Nigerian parents. No one knows except Meredith, his best friend, the daughter of prominent Washington insiders - and the one person who seems not to judge him.
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5 out of 5 stars
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So incredibly sad
- By Amazon Kunde on 02-08-20
By: Uzodinma Iweala
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Marrow
- By: Tarryn Fisher
- Narrated by: Audra Pagano
- Length: 10 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 549
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 490
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 489
Margo is not like other girls. She lives in a derelict neighborhood called the Bone, in a cursed house, with her cursed mother, who hasn't spoken to her in over two years. She lives her days feeling invisible. It's not until she develops a friendship with her wheelchair-bound neighbor, Judah Grant, that things begin to change. When a neighborhood girl, seven-year-old Neveah Anthony, goes missing, Judah sets out to help Margo uncover what happened to her. What Margo finds changes her, and with a new perspective on life she's determined to find evil and punish it.
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4 out of 5 stars
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HUH?? I'm so confused LOL
- By ❤️Cyndi Marie❤️🎧Audiobook Addicts🎧 on 09-15-16
By: Tarryn Fisher
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She's Come Undone
- By: Wally Lamb
- Narrated by: Linda Stephens
- Length: 18 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 2,094
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 1,822
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 1,838
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.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Really disappointing narrator!
- By Jessica Williams on 01-21-12
By: Wally Lamb
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Strong Motion
- By: Jonathan Franzen
- Narrated by: Scott Aiello
- Length: 20 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 222
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 193
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Story4 out of 5 stars 196
Louis Holland arrives in Boston in a spring of ecological upheaval (a rash of earthquakes on the North Shore) and odd luck: the first one kills his grandmother. Louis tries to maintain his independence, but falls in love with a Harvard seismologist whose discoveries about the earthquakes' cause complicate everything.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Compelling Story, Ridiculous Narrator
- By DianeReads on 02-28-16
By: Jonathan Franzen
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She Got Up Off the Couch
- By: Haven Kimmel
- Narrated by: Haven Kimmel
- Length: 8 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 274
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 186
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 187
When we last saw Zippy, she was oblivious to the storm that was brewing in her home. Her mother, Delonda, had literally just gotten up off the couch and ridden her rickety bicycle down the road. Her dad was off somewhere, gambling or "working." And Zippy was lost in her own fabulous world of exploring the fringes of Moorland, Indiana.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Great fun !!
- By Kim on 04-20-11
By: Haven Kimmel
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Magic Lessons
- A Prequel to Practical Magic
- By: Alice Hoffman
- Narrated by: Sutton Foster
- Length: 13 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 3,489
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 3,074
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 3,057
Where does the story of the Owens bloodline begin? With Maria Owens, in the 1600s, when she’s abandoned in a snowy field in rural England as a baby. Under the care of Hannah Owens, Maria learns about the “Nameless Arts". Hannah recognizes that Maria has a gift and she teaches the girl all she knows. It is here that she learns her first important lesson: Always love someone who will love you back.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Alice Hoffman Never Disappoints
- By Elle Estee on 10-07-20
By: Alice Hoffman
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A Doubter's Almanac
- A Novel
- By: Ethan Canin
- Narrated by: David Aaron Baker
- Length: 19 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 235
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 209
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Story4 out of 5 stars 210
Milo Andret is born with an unusual mind. A lonely child growing up in the woods of Northern Michigan in the 1950s, he gives little thought to his own talent. But with his acceptance at UC Berkeley, he realizes the extent - and the risks - of his singular gifts. California in the '70s is a seduction, opening Milo's eyes to the allure of both ambition and indulgence. The research he begins there will make him a legend; the woman he meets there - and the rival he meets alongside her - will haunt him for the rest of his life.
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4 out of 5 stars
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The curse of genius?
- By Bonny on 03-03-16
By: Ethan Canin
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Her Body and Other Parties
- Stories
- By: Carmen Maria Machado
- Narrated by: Amy Landon
- Length: 8 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall3.5 out of 5 stars 633
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 544
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Story3.5 out of 5 stars 551
In Her Body and Other Parties, Carmen Maria Machado blithely demolishes the arbitrary borders between psychological realism and science fiction, comedy and horror, fantasy and fabulism. While her work has earned her comparisons to Karen Russell and Kelly Link, she has a voice that is all her own. In this electric and provocative debut, Machado bends genre to shape startling narratives that map the realities of women's lives and the violence visited upon their bodies.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Beautiful
- By Anonymous User on 11-17-17