Escape Velocity
A Charles Portis Miscellany
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Escape Velocity
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Narrated by:
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Susan Bennett
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T. Ryder Smith
About this listen
Best known for his glorious comic novels—including the American classic True Grit—Charles Portis was also a prolific essayist, travel writer, and newspaper reporter. Now, for the first time, these writings—journalism, short fiction, memoir, travel stories, and even a play—have been brought together in Escape Velocity: A Charles Portis Miscellany.
The collection encompasses the breadth of Portis’s fifty-year writing career, covering topics as varied as road tripping in Baja, Elvis’s visits to his aging mother, and his own boyhood in Arkansas. Also included in Escape Velocity are Portis’s three-act play Delray’s New Moon; “Damn!”, a rare short story from 1957; and tributes by Donna Tartt, Wells Tower, Ron Rosenbaum, Ed Park, and Roy Blount, Jr.
While fans of Charles Portis’s sly and distinctive humor, quirky characters, and keen ear for detail will be thrilled at this new addition to their libraries, Escape Velocity will also serve as an essential introduction to those not yet familiar with his work.
©2013 Charles Portis; Compilation (c)2012 The Butler Center for Arkansas Studies; Introduction (c)2012 Jay Jennings (P)2022 Recorded BooksListeners also enjoyed...
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- A Travis McGee Novel, Book 1
- By: John D. MacDonald
- Narrated by: Robert Petkoff
- Length: 6 hrs
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 4,882
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 4,331
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Story4 out of 5 stars 4,338
He's a self-described beach bum who won his houseboat in a card game. He's also a knight errant who's wary of credit cards, retirement benefits, political parties, mortgages, and television. He only works when his cash runs out, and his rule is simple: he'll help you find whatever was taken from you, as long as he can keep half.
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2 out of 5 stars
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Before the A-Team, there was Travis McGee
- By Jim "The Impatient" on 11-12-16
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Lilian Jackson Braun 2-in-1 Edition, Volume 3
- The Cat Who Knew a Cardinal and The Cat Who Moved a Mountain
- By: Lilian Jackson Braun
- Narrated by: Theodore Bikel
- Length: 6 hrs and 1 min
- Abridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 106
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 91
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 90
Phoenix Books brings together two of Braun's best mysteries in the series, featuring: The Cat Who Knew a Cardinal: When the director of the Pickax Theatre Club's Shakespeare production is found dead in Qwilleran's apple orchard, Qwilleran and his Siamese sleuths must discover which player staged the murder. The Cat Who Moved a Mountain: On vacation in the Big Potato Mountains, Qwilleran stumbles into a mystery involving the murder of J. J. Hawkinfield, the developer who was pushed off a mountain years before after announcing his plans to develop the region.
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1 out of 5 stars
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Not the full books
- By Lisa Cissna on 07-15-20
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Player Piano
- By: Kurt Vonnegut
- Narrated by: Christian Rummel
- Length: 11 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 1,292
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 1,053
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 1,061
Kurt Vonnegut's first novel spins the chilling tale of engineer Paul Proteus, who must find a way to live in a world dominated by a supercomputer and run completely by machines. Paul's rebellion is vintage Vonnegut – wildly funny, deadly serious, and terrifyingly close to reality.
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5 out of 5 stars
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A Genuine 5-Stars
- By R.A. on 06-07-19
By: Kurt Vonnegut
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Slaughterhouse-Five
- By: Kurt Vonnegut
- Narrated by: James Franco
- Length: 5 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 18,948
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 16,937
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 16,912
Traumatized by the bombing of Dresden at the time he had been imprisoned, Pilgrim drifts through all events and history, sometimes deeply implicated, sometimes a witness. He is surrounded by Vonnegut's usual large cast of continuing characters (notably here the hack science fiction writer Kilgore Trout and the alien Tralfamadorians, who oversee his life and remind him constantly that there is no causation, no order, no motive to existence).
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4 out of 5 stars
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Don't Quit Your Daytime Job, James
- By Keith on 11-20-15
By: Kurt Vonnegut
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Essays of E. B. White
- By: E. B. White
- Narrated by: Malcolm Hillgartner
- Length: 12 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 235
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 209
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 207
Legendary author and essayist E. B. White writes, "The essayist is a self-liberated man, sustained by the childish belief that everything he thinks about, everything that happens to him, is of general interest." Covering a large number of subjects, this classic collection features 31 of White's most memorable essays.
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5 out of 5 stars
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E.B. White writes honestly, fearlessly and clearly
- By Bonny on 09-03-17
By: E. B. White
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Beyond the Black Stump
- By: Nevil Shute
- Narrated by: Davina Porter
- Length: 9 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 161
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 138
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Story4 out of 5 stars 139
When Stanton Laird, American geologist, goes prospecting for the Topeka Exploration Company in the savage Australian outback, he finds something a good deal more precious than oil.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Davina Porter is a wonderful narrator
- By Brian PDX on 07-26-14
By: Nevil Shute
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Alas, Babylon
- By: Pat Frank
- Narrated by: Will Patton
- Length: 11 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 13,447
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 11,560
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 11,540
This true modern masterpiece is built around the two fateful words that make up the title and herald the end - “Alas, Babylon.” When a nuclear holocaust ravages the United States, a thousand years of civilization are stripped away overnight, and tens of millions of people are killed instantly. But for one small town in Florida, miraculously spared, the struggle is just beginning, as men and women of all backgrounds join together to confront the darkness....
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4 out of 5 stars
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One apocalypse--hold the zombies
- By Lesley on 01-07-14
By: Pat Frank
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The Longest Road
- Overland in Search of America, from Key West to the Arctic Ocean
- By: Philip Caputo
- Narrated by: Pete Larkin
- Length: 11 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 122
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 108
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Story4 out of 5 stars 107
Philip Caputo, who had just turned 70, his wife, and their two English setters took off in a truck hauling an Airstream camper from Key West, Florida, en route via back roads and state routes to Deadhorse, Alaska. The journey took four months and covered 17,000 miles, during which Caputo interviewed more than 80 Americans from all walks of life to get a picture of what their lives and the life of the nation are really about in the 21st century.
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1 out of 5 stars
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Very Disappointing
- By Amazon Customer on 03-25-18
By: Philip Caputo
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Falconer
- By: John Cheever
- Narrated by: Jay Snyder
- Length: 6 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 111
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 77
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Story3.5 out of 5 stars 79
A convict named Farragut struggles to remain a man while inside a nightmarish prison. Cheever crafted his most powerful work of fiction out of Farragut's suffering and astonishing salvation.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Unsettling and beautiful
- By Darwin8u on 01-21-13
By: John Cheever
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The Confessions of Al Capone
- By: Loren D. Estleman
- Narrated by: Luke Daniels
- Length: 19 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 52
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 47
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 46
In 1944 Al Capone, the most notorious Mob boss in history, has already been released from prison. Though Capone is no longer the enormously powerful force who dominated Chicago’s underworld for years, he is still a thorn in the side of J. Edgar Hoover. The FBI chief knows that if he can somehow manage to get Capone to reveal details of crimes he and his Outfit committed, the Bureau has a good chance of nailing key members who now are active in the wartime black market.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Interesting story
- By Michael on 02-07-17
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That Old Ace in the Hole
- By: Annie Proulx
- Narrated by: Tom Stechschulte
- Length: 14 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 180
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 160
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 158
Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award winner Annie Proulx's That Old Ace in the Hole is told through the eyes of Bob Dollar, a young Denver man trying to make good in a bad world. Dollar is out of college but aimless, when he takes a job with Global Pork Rind - his task to locate big spreads of land in the Texas and Oklahoma panhandles that can be purchased by the corporation and converted to hog farms.
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2 out of 5 stars
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Doesn't work as a novel
- By Sarah C on 05-30-12
By: Annie Proulx
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1 Dead in Attic
- After Katrina
- By: Chris Rose
- Narrated by: Bronson Pinchot
- Length: 9 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 126
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 113
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 113
1 Dead in Attic is a collection of stories by Times-Picayune columnist Chris Rose, recounting the first harrowing year and a half of life in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. Celebrated as a local treasure and heaped with national praise, Rose provides a rollercoaster ride of observation, commentary, emotion, tragedy, and even humor - in a way that only he could find in a devastated wasteland. They are stories of the dead and the living, stories of survivors and believers, stories of hope and despair.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Still Makes Me Hurt
- By Gillian on 02-27-15
By: Chris Rose
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Signals: New and Selected Stories
- By: Tim Gautreaux
- Narrated by: Joe Barrett
- Length: 13 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 27
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 26
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 27
After the stunning historical novels The Clearing and The Missing, Tim Gautreaux now ranges freely through contemporary life with 12 new stories and eight from previous collections. Most are set in his beloved Louisiana, many hard by or on the Mississippi River, others in North Carolina, and even in midwinter Minnesota. But generally it's heat, humidity, and bugs that beset his people as they wrestle with affairs of the heart, matters of faith, and the pros and cons of tight-knit communities.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Perfection! Amazing writer/amazing reader
- By Monique on 01-08-19
By: Tim Gautreaux
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Love, Africa
- A Memoir of Romance, War, and Survival
- By: Jeffrey Gettleman
- Narrated by: Charlie Thurston
- Length: 11 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 195
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 171
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 173
A seasoned war correspondent, Jeffrey Gettleman has covered every major conflict over the past 20 years, from Afghanistan to Iraq to the Congo. For the past decade, he has served as the East Africa bureau chief for the New York Times, fulfilling his teenage dream of living in Africa. Love, Africa is the story of how he got there - and of his difficult, winding path toward becoming a good reporter and a better man.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Loved this book!!!
- By Benjamin on 05-26-17
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What's So Funny?
- My Hilarious Life
- By: Tim Conway, Jane Scovell, Carol Burnett - foreword
- Narrated by: Tim Conway, Carol Burnett, Dick Hill, and others
- Length: 8 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 2,162
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 1,942
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Story4 out of 5 stars 1,933
Six-time Emmy Award-winning funnyman Tim Conway, best known for his characters on The Carol Burnett Show, offers a straight-shooting and hilarious memoir about his life on stage and off as an actor and comedian. In television history, few entertainers have captured as many hearts and made as many people laugh as Tim Conway. There's nothing in the world that Tim Conway would rather do than entertain - and in his first-ever memoir, What's So Funny?, that's exactly what he does.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Not narrated by Tim
- By Bob Murdock on 05-05-14
By: Tim Conway, and others
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The 42nd Parallel
- By: John Dos Passos
- Narrated by: David Drummond
- Length: 13 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 288
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 242
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Story4 out of 5 stars 243
This first entry in John Dos Passos's celebrated U.S.A. trilogy paints a grand picture of the United States at the dawn of the twentieth century.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Powerful document of an all-too-familiar past
- By Ryan on 06-01-13
By: John Dos Passos