Living Up the Street
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Living Up the Street
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Narrated by:
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Robert Ramirez
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By:
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Gary Soto
About this listen
Growing up Mexican-American in Fresno, California in the 1950’s and 60’s might not have been easy, but it was certainly never boring for young Gary Soto, his brother Rick and sister Debra. As this compilation of 21 short stories and articles illustrates, there is no limit to the amount of fun a child can have, or how much he can terrorize siblings and neighbors if his imagination is active. Whether it’s beating the new neighbor kids with bagged cats, or staring into a fan for an hour without blinking while imagining he is a World War I biplane pilot, Soto passes along humorous and compelling life lessons and tales of coming of age. Gary Soto, author of The Skirt, teaches creative writing at the University of California, Berkeley. He often writes about what it is like growing up Mexican-American, and has produced two short films for Spanish-speaking children. Stories include: “Being Mean”, “Looking for Work”, “The Beauty Contest”, “Saturday with Jackie”, “The Small Faces”, “Bloodworth”, “One Last Time”, “Being Stupid”, and “Getting By”.
©1985 Gary Soto (P)1995 Recorded BooksListeners also enjoyed...
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WOW! Just WOW.
- By chamilton on 07-09-16
By: Richard Fifield
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The Shadow Year
- A Novel
- By: Jeffrey Ford
- Narrated by: Kevin T. Collins
- Length: 10 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 55
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 42
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Story4 out of 5 stars 42
On New York's Long Island, in the unpredictable decade of the 1960s, a young boy spends much of his free time in the basement of his family's modest home, where he and his brother, Jim, have created Botch Town, a detailed cardboard replica of their community, complete with figurines representing friends and neighbors. Their little sister, Mary, smokes cigarettes, speaks in other voices, inhabits alternate personas... and, unbeknownst to her siblings, moves around the inanimate clay residents.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Couldn't stop listening!!!
- By Marjory on 12-12-10
By: Jeffrey Ford
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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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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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Fruit of the Drunken Tree
- A Novel
- By: Ingrid Rojas Contreras
- Narrated by: Marisol Ramirez, Almarie Guerra, Ingrid Rojas Contreras
- Length: 12 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 638
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 570
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 568
Seven-year-old Chula and her older sister, Cassandra, enjoy carefree lives thanks to their gated community in Bogotá, but the threat of kidnappings, car bombs, and assassinations hover just outside the neighborhood walls, where the godlike drug lord Pablo Escobar continues to elude authorities and capture the attention of the nation. When their mother hires Petrona, a live-in-maid from the city's guerrilla-occupied slum, Chula makes it her mission to understand Petrona's mysterious ways.
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2 out of 5 stars
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Maybe better to read this book than listen???
- By Amazon Customer on 12-12-18
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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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A Girl Named Zippy
- Growing Up Small in Mooreland, Indiana
- By: Haven Kimmel
- Narrated by: Haven Kimmel
- Length: 6 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 545
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 378
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 382
When Haven Kimmel was born in 1965, Mooreland, Indiana, was a sleepy little hamlet of 300 people. Nicknamed "Zippy" for the way she would bolt around the house, this small girl was possessed of big eyes and even bigger ears. In this witty and lovingly told memoir, Kimmel takes readers back to a time when small-town America was caught in the amber of the innocent postwar period - people helped their neighbors, went to church on Sunday, and kept barnyard animals in their backyards.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Beautifully written, beautifully read.
- By shopgirl on 03-06-08
By: Haven Kimmel
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Ham on Rye
- A Novel
- By: Charles Bukowski
- Narrated by: Christian Baskous
- Length: 7 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 2,490
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 2,199
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 2,190
In what is widely hailed as the best of his many novels, Charles Bukowski details the long, lonely years of his own hardscrabble youth in the raw voice of alter ego Henry Chinaski. From a harrowingly cheerless childhood in Germany through acne-riddled high school years, and his adolescent discoveries of alcohol, women, and the Los Angeles Public Library's collection of D. H. Lawrence, Ham on Rye offers a crude, brutal, and savagely funny portrait of an outcast's coming-of-age during the desperate days of the Great Depression.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Men's version of Virginia Woolf
- By I Ate Your Pug For Lunch and It was Tasty on 12-09-13
By: Charles Bukowski
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Make Something Up
- Stories You Can't Unread
- By: Chuck Palahniuk
- Narrated by: Chuck Palahniuk, Scott Sowers, Rich Orlow, and others
- Length: 11 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall3.5 out of 5 stars 483
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 434
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Story3.5 out of 5 stars 431
For years Chuck Palahniuk has reserved his best storytelling for his readings, often choosing to read a new short story instead of whatever novel he is supposed to be promoting. Make Something Up compiles these previously unpublished tales for the very first time, plus the Byliner social media insta-classic "Phoenix" and Palahniuk's most notable pieces from Playboy.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Plenty of shock, just not enough Palahniuk awe
- By Darwin8u on 06-10-15
By: Chuck Palahniuk
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No Biking in the House Without a Helmet
- By: Melissa Fay Greene
- Narrated by: Coleen Marlo
- Length: 12 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 40
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 29
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 28
When the two-time National Book Award finalist Melissa Fay Greene confided to friends that she and her husband planned to adopt a four-year-old boy from Bulgaria to add to their four children at home, the news threatened to place her, she writes, "among the greats: the Kennedys, the McCaughey septuplets, the von Trapp family singers, and perhaps even Mrs. Feodor Vassilyev, who, according to the Guinness Book of World Records, gave birth to 69 children in eighteenth-century Russia."
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4 out of 5 stars
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Great story of family changes
- By Peter on 02-14-12
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Football Genius
- By: Tim Green
- Narrated by: Tim Green
- Length: 5 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 127
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 92
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 94
When Tory White's mom gets a job with the Atlanta Falcons, Tory demonstrates his uncanny ability to call football plays before they happen. With Troy's genius, the Falcons could be unstoppable-- if only the coaches would take him seriously!
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5 out of 5 stars
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pretty engrossing
- By Pournima Navalkele on 01-20-24
By: Tim Green
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Scarborough
- By: Catherine Hernandez
- Narrated by: Catherine Hernandez
- Length: 6 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 29
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 27
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 27
In Scarborough, a low-income urban neighborhood, three kids struggle to rise above poverty, abuse, and a system that consistently fails them. The adults in their lives either rise to the occasion or fall by the wayside; together, they make up a troubled yet inspired community that refuses to be undone.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Difficult but excellent!
- By Erna on 01-30-20
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Wringer
- By: Jerry Spinelli
- Narrated by: Johnny Heller
- Length: 4 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 168
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 135
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Story4 out of 5 stars 136
Palmer LaRue is running out of birthdays. For as long as he can remember, he's dreaded the day he turns ten - the day he'll take his place beside all the other ten-year-old boys in town, the day he'll be a wringer. But Palmer doesn't want to be a wringer. It's one of the first things he learned about himself and it's one of the biggest things he has to hide. In Palmer's town being a wringer is an honor, a tradition passed down from father to son.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Slow Reading
- By Erin on 12-13-10
By: Jerry Spinelli
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The Kite Runner
- By: Khaled Hosseini
- Narrated by: Khaled Hosseini
- Length: 12 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 20,323
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 14,139
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 14,145
Why we think it’s a great listen: Never before has an author’s narration of his fiction been so important to fully grasping the book’s impact and global implications. Taking us from Afghanistan in the final days of its monarchy to the present, The Kite Runner is the unforgettable story of the friendship between two boys growing up in Kabul. Their intertwined lives, and their fates, reflect the eventual tragedy of the world around them.
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4 out of 5 stars
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A Worhty Read
- By P. C..S. on 08-17-03
By: Khaled Hosseini
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Mermaids
- By: Patty Dann
- Narrated by: Elizabeth Evans
- Length: 4 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 74
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 61
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Story4 out of 5 stars 62
So begins this extraordinary first novel about one wild year in the life of 14-year-old Charlotte Flax, when she and her sister Kate move with Mrs. Flax into a sleepy 1960's Massachusetts town. Mrs. Flax is a woman who wears polka-dot dresses and serves hors d'oeuvres for dinner every night, and Kate is a child who basically wants to be a fish. And then there's Charlotte, who in Patty Dann's hands, is transformed into a young woman of infinite whim and variety.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Finally!
- By Daryl on 05-07-13
By: Patty Dann
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Children Playing Before a Statue of Hercules (Unabridged Selections)
- By: Edited by David Sedaris
- Narrated by: David Sedaris, Mary-Louise Parker, Cherry Jones
- Length: 2 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 359
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 216
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Story4 out of 5 stars 217
Children Playing Before a Statue of Hercules is a collection of short stories, some classic, others impending, selected and introduced by David Sedaris.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Great stories but only 5 of 17 are included
- By Terri Kirk on 07-13-12
What listeners say about Living Up the Street
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance3 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- Great
- 05-01-19
Narration is distracting
The way the narrator pronounced words with “W” might distract you. Very strong annunciation I suppose.
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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
- Rod C.
- 10-04-17
amazing
I had to read this book for my English class and I absolutely love this book. I love that it's so relatible.
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