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Little Black Book of Stories
- Narrated by: Gabrielle Glaister
- Length: 6 hrs and 31 mins
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Little Black Book of Stories
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Publisher's summary
A new collection of stories from A. S. Byatt is always a winner, and this one takes an unexpected turn, bringing shivers as well as delights.
Leaves rustle underfoot in a dark wood: two middle-aged women walk into a forest, as they did when they were girls, confronting their fears and memories and the strange thing they saw in their childhood - or thought they saw - so long ago. A distinguished obstetrician and young woman artist find they have sharply contrasting ideas about body parts, birth and death; an innocent member of an evening class harbours unexpected view on 'raw material'.
The stories in this marvellous collection are by turns funny, spooky, sparkling and haunting. The Little Black Book of Stories holds its secrets, adding a dark quality to Byatt's famous skill in mixing folk and fairy tale with everyday life.
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- By: Janet Frame
- Narrated by: Heather Bolton
- Length: 8 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 34
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 25
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 25
Owls Do Cry is Janet Frame's first novel. She describes her idea behind it in the second volume of her autobiography: 'Pictures of great treasure in the midst of sadness and waste haunted me and I began to think, in fiction, of a childhood, home life, hospital life, using people known to me as a base for main characters, and inventing minor characters.'
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4 out of 5 stars
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well told but a wee bit depressing.
- By Muzza on 11-03-19
By: Janet Frame
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The Waves
- By: Virginia Woolf
- Narrated by: Frances Jeater
- Length: 8 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 188
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 173
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 174
The Waves traces the lives of six friends from childhood to old age. It was written when Virginia Woolf was at the height of her experimental powers, and she allows each character to tell their own story, through powerful, poetic monologues. By listening to these voices struggling to impose order and meaning on their lives, we are drawn into a literary journey that stunningly reproduces the complex, confusing and contradictory nature of human experience. It is read with affection and skill by Frances Jeater.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Not an easy read but worth it
- By Lena on 03-26-16
By: Virginia Woolf
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Cleo
- How a Small Black Cat Helped Heal a Family
- By: Helen Brown
- Narrated by: Helen Brown
- Length: 10 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 24
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 22
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 22
Helen Brown wasn't a cat person, but her nine-year-old son Sam was. So when Sam heard a woman telling his mum that her cat had just had kittens, Sam pleaded to go and see them. Helen's heart melted as Sam held one of the kittens in his hands with a look of total adoration. In a trice the deal was done - the kitten would be delivered to them when she was big enough to leave her mother. A week later, the family suffered a terrible tragedy. Totally traumatised by it, Helen completely forgot all about the kitten until a little black bundle of fur was delivered to her doorstep.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Wonderful
- By pgriswold6fe9 on 01-26-23
By: Helen Brown
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The Last House on Needless Street
- By: Catriona Ward
- Narrated by: Christopher Ragland
- Length: 12 hrs
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 4,413
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 3,979
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Story4 out of 5 stars 3,965
In a boarded-up house on a dead-end street at the edge of the wild Washington woods lives a family of three. A teenage girl who isn’t allowed outside, not after last time. A man who drinks alone in front of his TV, trying to ignore the gaps in his memory. And a house cat who loves napping and reading the Bible. An unspeakable secret binds them together, but when a new neighbor moves in next door, what is buried out among the birch trees may come back to haunt them all.
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5 out of 5 stars
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I can only listen in 1-2 hour segments!
- By Brenda on 10-04-21
By: Catriona Ward
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The Ten Thousand Doors of January
- By: Alix E. Harrow
- Narrated by: January LaVoy
- Length: 12 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 6,385
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 5,700
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 5,692
In a sprawling mansion filled with peculiar treasures, January Scaller is a curiosity herself. As the ward of the wealthy Mr. Locke, she feels little different from the artifacts that decorate the halls: carefully maintained, largely ignored, and utterly out of place. Then she finds a strange book. A book that carries the scent of other worlds and tells a tale of secret doors, of love, adventure, and danger. Each page turn reveals impossible truths about the world, and January discovers a story increasingly entwined with her own.
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3 out of 5 stars
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A princess in a castle can't fend for herself
- By Summer on 11-11-19
By: Alix E. Harrow
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On Division
- A Novel
- By: Goldie Goldbloom
- Narrated by: Barrie Kreinik
- Length: 7 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 64
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 58
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 57
In Williamsburg, Brooklyn, just a block or two up from the East River on Division Avenue, Surie Eckstein is soon to be a great-grandmother. Her 10 children range in age from 13 to 39. Her in-laws, postwar immigrants from Romania, live on the first floor of their house. Her daughter Tzila Ruchel lives on the second. She and Yidel, a scribe in such demand that he makes only a few Torah scrolls a year, live on the third. Wed when Surie was 16, they have a happy marriage and a full life, and, at the ages of 57 and 62, they are looking forward to some quiet time together.
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5 out of 5 stars
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A great book
- By Sab on 04-24-20
By: Goldie Goldbloom
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I Couldn't Love You More
- A Novel
- By: Esther Freud
- Narrated by: Niamh Cusack
- Length: 10 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 34
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 29
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Story4 out of 5 stars 29
A sweeping story of three generations of women, crossing from London to Ireland and back again, and the enduring effort to retrieve the secrets of the past.
By: Esther Freud
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The Wisdom of Sally Red Shoes
- A Novel
- By: Ruth Hogan
- Narrated by: Elaine Claxton
- Length: 9 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 108
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 92
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 92
Once a spirited, independent woman with a rebellious streak, Masha's life was forever changed by a tragic event 12 years ago. Unable to let go of her grief, she finds comfort in her faithful canine companion Haizum and peace in the quiet lanes of her town's swimming pool. Almost without her realizing it, her life has shuddered to a halt.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Sweet Story
- By Nancy Briggs on 12-14-19
By: Ruth Hogan
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Girl in Hyacinth Blue
- By: Susan Vreeland
- Narrated by: Loren Lester, Sheryl Bernstein
- Length: 5 hrs
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 209
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 134
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Story4 out of 5 stars 134
A professor shows a colleague a painting that he has kept secret for decades. The professor swears it is a Vermeer - but why has he hidden this important work for so long? The reasons unfold in a series of stories that trace ownership of the painting back to World War II and Amsterdam, and still further back to the moment of the work's inspiration.
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4 out of 5 stars
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wonderful
- By Sybil on 04-07-03
By: Susan Vreeland
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The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue
- By: V. E. Schwab
- Narrated by: Julia Whelan
- Length: 17 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 38,569
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 34,392
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 34,277
France, 1714: In a moment of desperation, a young woman makes a Faustian bargain to live forever - and is cursed to be forgotten by everyone she meets. Thus begins the extraordinary life of Addie LaRue, and a dazzling adventure that will play out across centuries and continents, across history and art, as a young woman learns how far she will go to leave her mark on the world. But everything changes when, after nearly 300 years, Addie stumbles across a young man in a hidden bookstore and he remembers her name.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Prose style not to my liking
- By C.V. Cox on 10-18-20
By: V. E. Schwab
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The Return of the Soldier
- By: Rebecca West
- Narrated by: Nadia May
- Length: 2 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 105
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 89
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Story4 out of 5 stars 88
In this lyrical and poignant story of a wounded man and the three concerned women who seek to heal him, Rebecca West explores the complexity of the mind and its subtle strategies for coping with life's painful realities. Only when Chris has the courage to face one pivotal moment of truth in his married life will he be able to awaken from his boyish fantasy and become, indeed, "every inch a soldier".
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5 out of 5 stars
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a gem
- By beatrice on 09-08-21
By: Rebecca West
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Elfland
- Aetherial Tales, Book 1
- By: Freda Warrington
- Narrated by: Matthew Lloyd Davies
- Length: 22 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 204
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 186
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Story4 out of 5 stars 186
Elfland is an intimate, sensual novel of people—both human and Aetherial—caught between duty and desire. It is a story of families, and of Rose Fox, a woman born to magic but tormented by her place in her adopted world.Led by Auberon Fox, a group of Aetherials—call them the Fair Folk, if you will—live among us, indistinguishable from humans. Every seven years, on the Night of the Summer Stars, Lawrence Wilder, the Gatekeeper, throws open all gates to the Other World. But this time, something has gone wrong.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Miscommunication is an obnoxious plot device
- By Robin on 05-26-16
By: Freda Warrington
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The Blind Assassin
- By: Margaret Atwood
- Narrated by: Margot Dionne
- Length: 18 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 2,089
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 1,398
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Story4 out of 5 stars 1,391
For the past twenty-five years, Margaret Atwood has written works of striking originality and imagination. In The Blind Assassin, she stretches the limits of her accomplishments as never before, creating a novel that is entertaining and profoundly serious. The novel opens with these simple, resonant words: "Ten days after the war ended, my sister drove a car off the bridge." They are spoken by Iris, whose terse account of her sister Laura's death in 1945 is followed by an inquest report proclaiming the death accidental.
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1 out of 5 stars
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Good book, TERRIBLE audio!
- By Whitney on 04-27-09
By: Margaret Atwood
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The Parisian
- By: Isabella Hammad
- Narrated by: Fiona Button
- Length: 20 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 166
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 140
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Story4 out of 5 stars 142
A masterful debut novel by Plimpton Prize winner Isabella Hammad, The Parisian illuminates a pivotal period of Palestinian history through the journey and romances of one young man, from his studies in France during World War I to his return to Palestine at the dawn of its battle for independence.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Overly ambitious
- By Placeholder on 06-16-19
By: Isabella Hammad