Instructions for a Funeral
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Instructions for a Funeral
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Narrated by:
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David de Vries
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By:
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David Means
About this listen
"Poetic, insightful, and deeply moving. David Means is one of my very favorite writers." (Tara Westover, author of Educated)
Following the publication of his widely acclaimed Man Booker-nominated novel Hystopia, David Means here returns to his signature form: the short story. Thanks to his four previous story collections, Means has won himself an international reputation as one of the most innovative short fiction writers working today: an “established master of the form.” (Laura Miller, The Guardian).
Instructions for a Funeral - featuring work from The New Yorker, Harper’s, The Paris Review, and VICE - finds Means branching out beyond the explorations of violence and trauma with which he is often identified, prominently displaying his sly humor and his inimitable way of telling tales that deliciously wind up to punch the reader in the heart. With each story Means pushes into new territory, writing with tenderness and compassion about fatherhood, marriage, a homeless brother, the nature of addiction, and the death of a friend at the hands of a serial-killer nurse. Means transmutes a fistfight in Sacramento into a tender, life-long love story; two FBI agents on a stakeout in the 1920s into a tale of predator and prey, paternal urges and loss; a man’s funeral instructions into a chronicle of organized crime, real estate ventures, and the destructive force of paranoia.
Means’ work has earned him comparisons to Flannery O’Connor, Alice Munro, Sherwood Anderson, Denis Johnson, Edgar Allan Poe, Anton Chekhov, and Raymond Carver, but his place in the American literary landscape is fully and originally his own.
"David Means is a master of tense, distilled, quintessentially American prose. Like any artist who has finely honed his talent to its strongest expression he is a brilliant craftsman whose achievement is to appear unstudied, even casual... Each story by Means which I have read is unlike the others, unexpected and an unnerving delight." (Joyce Carol Oates)
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-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 250
Anders is an angry, cynical man. A book critic known for his scathing reviews, he finds any excuse to dismiss, belittle, or insult. This afternoon is no more agitating than the next. Angers finds himself in a long line at the bank, waiting to reach a teller. Even after two men - wearing masks and carrying guns - take control of the building, Anders is unfazed. It's this behavior that lands him with a pistol against his stomach and a man screamingin his face. And when the bank robber, indignant over Anders' behavior, shoots the book critic in the head, his mind floats through the memories of his life, settling on one particular event....
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5 out of 5 stars
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The Perfect Example
- By Sarah on 08-01-17
By: Tobias Wolff
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The Best Horror of the Year, Volume 4
- By: Ellen Datlow - author/editor, Stephen King, Peter Straub
- Narrated by: Meredith Mitchell, Rebecca Mitchell, Michael Healy, and others
- Length: 16 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall3.5 out of 5 stars 215
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 196
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Story3.5 out of 5 stars 195
With tales from Laird Barron, Stephen King, John Langan, Peter Straub, and many others, and featuring Datlow’s comprehensive overview of the year in horror, now, more than ever, The Best Horror of the Year provides the petrifying horror fiction readers have come to expect - and enjoy.
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1 out of 5 stars
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Only a few decent stories in this bunch.
- By Jerry on 12-06-14
By: Ellen Datlow - author/editor, and others
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Stories
- All-New Tales
- By: Neil Gaiman - author/editor, Al Sarrantonio - editor, Joe Hill, and others
- Narrated by: Anne Bobby, Jonathan Davis, Katherine Kellgren, and others
- Length: 18 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 886
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 691
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Story4 out of 5 stars 691
The best stories pull readers in and keep them turning the pages, eager to discover more—to find the answer to the question: "And then what happened?" The true hallmark of great literature is great imagination, and as Neil Gaiman and Al Sarrantonio prove with this outstanding collection, when it comes to great fiction, all genres are equal.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Something for Everyone
- By Nicole on 05-24-17
By: Neil Gaiman - author/editor, and others
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Sometimes a Great Notion
- By: Ken Kesey
- Narrated by: Tom Stechschulte
- Length: 30 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 854
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 740
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 731
A literary icon sometimes seen as a bridge between the Beat Generation and the hippies, Ken Kesey scored an unexpected hit with his first novel, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. His successful follow-up, Sometimes a Great Notion, was also transformed into a major motion picture, directed by and starring Paul Newman. Here, Oregon’s Stamper family does what it can to survive a bitter strike dividing their tiny logging community. And as tensions rise, delicate family bonds begin to fray and unravel.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Sometimes a Great Novel Pops up out of Nowhere
- By Mr. Eyuz on 06-07-19
By: Ken Kesey
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Driving on the Rim
- By: Thomas McGuane
- Narrated by: Traber Burns
- Length: 12 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 92
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 73
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Story4 out of 5 stars 71
The unforgettable voyager of this dark picaresque is I. B. "Berl" Pickett, M.D., whose die was probably cast the moment his mother thought to name him after Irving Berlin. Other insults piled on apace thereafter: the spasms of Pentecostal Sunday worship; the social debilitation of following his parents' itinerant rug-shampooing business; the erotic initiation at the hands of his aunt. It's hard to imagine what would have become of him had he not gone to medical school.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Delightful
- By Roy on 01-05-11
By: Thomas McGuane
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A Killing in the Hills
- A Novel (Bell Elkins, Book 1)
- By: Julia Keller
- Narrated by: Shannon McManus
- Length: 12 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 187
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 171
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Story4 out of 5 stars 169
What’s happening in Acker’s Gap, West Virginia? Three elderly men are gunned down over their coffee at a local diner, and seemingly half the town is there to witness the act. Still, it happened so fast, and no one seems to have gotten a good look at the shooter. Was it random? Was it connected to the spate of drug violence plaguing poor areas of the country just like Acker’s Gap? Or were Dean Streeter, Shorty McClurg, and Lee Rader targeted somehow?
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5 out of 5 stars
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A wonderful treat!
- By Joanne on 09-11-12
By: Julia Keller
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The Fisherman
- By: John Langan
- Narrated by: Danny Campbell
- Length: 11 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 2,767
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 2,441
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Story4 out of 5 stars 2,442
In upstate New York, in the woods around Woodstock, Dutchman's Creek flows out of the Ashokan Reservoir. Steep-banked, fast-moving, it offers the promise of fine fishing, and of something more, a possibility too fantastic to be true. When Abe and Dan, two widowers who have found solace in each other's company and a shared passion for fishing, hear rumors of the Creek, and what might be found there, the remedy to both their losses, they dismiss it as just another fish story.
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3 out of 5 stars
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The Horror of Loss
- By Jim N on 04-20-17
By: John Langan
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A Death in Kitchawank, and Other Stories
- By: T. C. Boyle
- Narrated by: T. C. Boyle
- Length: 9 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 100
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 93
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Story4 out of 5 stars 90
Few authors write with such sheer love of story and language as T. C. Boyle, and that is nowhere more evident than in his inventive, wickedly funny, and always entertaining short stories. Here are 14 new tales previously unpublished in book form. By turns mythic and realistic, farcical and tragic, ironic and moving, Boyle's stories have mapped a wide range of human emotions. The stories here reflect his maturing themes.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Mixed Bag
- By AuntGert on 09-22-20
By: T. C. Boyle
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Funerals for Horses
- By: Catherine Ryan Hyde
- Narrated by: Carly Robins
- Length: 5 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall3.5 out of 5 stars 125
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 109
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Story3.5 out of 5 stars 111
Ella Ginsberg's brother, Simon, has disappeared. His clothing, shoes, and watch were found abandoned near a freight line track in Central California. His jockey shorts and wallet were never found. The police have no clue, and Simon's wife had no warning that anything was wrong. Ella takes off on foot across much of California and Arizona, thinking she can find Simon using nothing but her knowledge of the way he might think. Her search leads her to the Navajo Nation in Arizona.
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1 out of 5 stars
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Funerals for Horses
- By Carolyn Ferrell on 03-26-18
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Man Alive
- A True Story of Violence, Forgiveness and Becoming a Man
- By: Thomas Page McBee
- Narrated by: Thomas Page McBee
- Length: 3 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 68
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 57
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 58
What does it really mean to be a man? In Man Alive, Thomas Page McBee attempts to answer that question by focusing on two of the men who most impacted his life - one, his otherwise ordinary father who abused him as a child, and the other, a mugger who almost killed him. Standing at the brink of the life-changing decision to transition from female to male, McBee seeks to understand these examples of flawed manhood and tells us how a brush with violence sent him on the quest to untangle a sinister past and freed him to become the man he was meant to be.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Worth a listen
- By Kade on 05-30-18
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White Noise
- By: Don DeLillo
- Narrated by: Michael Prichard
- Length: 12 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 858
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 753
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Story4 out of 5 stars 751
When an industrial accident unleashes an "airborne toxic event", a lethal black chemical cloud floats over the Gladneys' lives. The menacing cloud is a more urgent and visible version of the "white noise" engulfing the Gladneys - radio transmissions, sirens, microwaves, ultrasonic appliances, and TV murmurings - pulsing with life yet suggesting something ominous.
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2 out of 5 stars
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Designed to be analyzed by an English class
- By RI in Canada on 10-15-16
By: Don DeLillo
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Pacific Beat
- By: T. Jefferson Parker
- Narrated by: David Colacci
- Length: 14 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 85
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 63
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Story4 out of 5 stars 64
Ex-cop Jim Weir thought he'd seen it all during his years on the force. That is until he saw the body of his sister Annie, brutally used by a monster in human form, then carelessly discarded. He'd never seen such grief ravage the face of his friend and brother-in-law Ray Cruz, a good cop on the Newport Beach Police Department. When Weir learns that the only witness swore the killer made his escape in a Newport Beach squad car, his disbelief turns to confusion and outrage.
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1 out of 5 stars
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Bad, bad, bad...
- By Robert E. Orlando on 11-19-14
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The Plague of Doves
- By: Louise Erdrich
- Narrated by: Peter Francis James, Kathleen McInerney
- Length: 11 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 513
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 364
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Story4 out of 5 stars 362
The unsolved murder of a farm family haunts the small, white, off-reservation town of Pluto, North Dakota. The vengeance exacted for this crime and the subsequent distortions of truth transform the lives of Ojibwe living on the nearby reservation and shape the passions of both communities for the next generation.
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1 out of 5 stars
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Avoid this Plague
- By Andre on 05-16-08
By: Louise Erdrich
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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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Hemlock Grove
- or, The Wise Wolf
- By: Brian McGreevy
- Narrated by: Sean Runnette
- Length: 10 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 425
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 385
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Story4 out of 5 stars 384
The body of a young girl is found mangled and murdered in the woods of Hemlock Grove, Pennsylvania, in the shadow of the abandoned Godfrey Steel Mill. A manhunt ensues - though the authorities aren’t sure if it's a man they should be looking for.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Very similar to the TV show
- By Erin on 01-01-14
By: Brian McGreevy
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Shadow Show
- All-New Stories in Celebration of Ray Bradbury
- By: Sam Weller - editor, Mort Castle - editor
- Narrated by: George Takei, Edward Herrmann, Kate Mulgrew, and others
- Length: 14 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 178
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 161
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Story4 out of 5 stars 161
Ray Bradbury - peerless storyteller, poet of the impossible, and one of America's most beloved authors - is a literary giant whose remarkable career spanned seven decades. Now 26 of today's most diverse and celebrated authors offer new short works in honor of the master; stories of heart, intelligence, and dark wonder from a remarkable range of creative artists.
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5 out of 5 stars
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THE MAN WHO FORGOT RAY BRADBURY
- By Jim "The Impatient" on 05-27-17
By: Sam Weller - editor, and others
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Angel of Harlem
- By: Kuwanna Haulsey
- Narrated by: Brenda Pressley
- Length: 10 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 48
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 41
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Story5 out of 5 stars 41
Inspired by the extraordinary events of Dr. May Chinn’s life, Angel of Harlem is a deeply affecting story of love and transcendence. Weaving seamlessly scenes from the battlefields of the Civil War, during which her father escaped from slavery, to the Harlem living rooms and kitchen tables where May is sometimes forced to operate on her patients, this fascinating novel lays bare the heart of a woman who changed the face of medicine.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Really Enjoyed!
- By Amazon Customer on 08-08-19
By: Kuwanna Haulsey
What listeners say about Instructions for a Funeral
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Sue
- 04-04-23
What a beautifully told set of stories
Well, I’ve just finished listening, and immediately had to order the book so that I could really see these stories on the page. What a writer.
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