Nothing with Strings
NPR's Beloved Holiday Stories
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Narrated by:
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Lorna Raver
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By:
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Bailey White
About this listen
Listeners also enjoyed...
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I Choose Darkness
- A Holiday Essay
- By: Jenny Lawson
- Narrated by: Jenny Lawson
- Length: 38 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
The holly-jolly holidays aren’t for everyone, least of all when you look back on that one Christmas when there were two definitely haunted dolls waiting for you and your sister under the tree. You have to assume that’s where it all started. And so it was for Jenny Lawson. Now, she lives in the land of eternal Halloween, as evidenced by her interior decor and general state of darkness. (Although, if you ask her, her taxidermy zoo is less dark, more delightful. But not everyone has taste, so what are you going to do?)
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Audiobook Treat, Delightful, Short Listen. Laughed out loud and smiled!
- By Amanda Messina on 10-19-22
By: Jenny Lawson
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Boom Town
- A Lake Wobegon Novel
- By: Garrison Keillor
- Narrated by: Garrison Keillor
- Length: 12 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
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Return to America’s most beloved fictional hometown! Lake Wobegon is having a boom year thanks to millennial entrepreneurship—AuntMildred’s.com Gourmet Meatloaf, for example, or Universal Fire, makers of artisanal firewood seasoned with sea salt. Meanwhile, the author flies in to give eulogies at the funerals of five classmates, including a couple whom he disliked, and he finds a wave of narcissism crashing on the rocks of Lutheran stoicism.
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Hope you aren't conservative in any way.
- By Thomas S. Ashton on 04-27-22
By: Garrison Keillor
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The Speckled Beauty
- A Dog and His People
- By: Rick Bragg
- Narrated by: Rick Bragg
- Length: 6 hrs and 22 mins
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From the best-selling, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of All Over but the Shoutin', the warmhearted and hilarious story of how his life was transformed by his love for a poorly behaved, half-blind stray dog.
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Finest Book on Audible, Bar None (imho)
- By Mary Burnight on 08-12-22
By: Rick Bragg
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Astor
- The Rise and Fall of an American Fortune
- By: Anderson Cooper, Katherine Howe
- Narrated by: Anderson Cooper
- Length: 8 hrs and 19 mins
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Overall
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From 1783, when German immigrant John Jacob Astor first arrived in the United States, until 2009, when Brooke Astor’s son, Anthony Marshall, was convicted of defrauding his elderly mother, the Astor name occupied a unique place in American society. The family fortune, first made by a beaver trapping business that grew into an empire, was then amplified by holdings in Manhattan real estate. Over the ensuing generations, Astors ruled Gilded Age New York society and inserted themselves into political and cultural life, but also suffered the most famous loss on the Titanic.
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A family first made, then destroyed by wealth.
- By Barbara W. on 09-23-23
By: Anderson Cooper, and others
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Miss Marple: The Complete Short Stories
- A Miss Marple Collection
- By: Agatha Christie
- Narrated by: Juliet Stevenson
- Length: 12 hrs and 12 mins
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Miss Marple: The Complete Story Collection gathers together in one magnificent volume all of Agatha Christie’s short stories featuring her beloved intrepid investigator, Miss Marple. It’s an unparalleled compendium of murder, mayhem, mystery, and detection that represents some of the finest short form fiction in the crime fiction field, and is an essential omnibus for Christie fans.
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Classic Miss Marple - uneven narration
- By Lyric G. Eads on 11-09-22
By: Agatha Christie
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Two Nights in Lisbon
- A Novel
- By: Chris Pavone
- Narrated by: January LaVoy
- Length: 14 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Ariel Price wakes up in Lisbon, alone. Her husband is gone—no warning, no note, not answering his phone. Something is wrong. She starts with hotel security, then the police, then the American embassy, at each confronting questions she can’t fully answer: What exactly is John doing in Lisbon? Why would he drag her along on his business trip? Who would want to harm him? And why does Ariel know so little about her new—much younger—husband?
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Don’t bother reading unless you enjoy…
- By Cynthia on 05-29-22
By: Chris Pavone
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I Choose Darkness
- A Holiday Essay
- By: Jenny Lawson
- Narrated by: Jenny Lawson
- Length: 38 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The holly-jolly holidays aren’t for everyone, least of all when you look back on that one Christmas when there were two definitely haunted dolls waiting for you and your sister under the tree. You have to assume that’s where it all started. And so it was for Jenny Lawson. Now, she lives in the land of eternal Halloween, as evidenced by her interior decor and general state of darkness. (Although, if you ask her, her taxidermy zoo is less dark, more delightful. But not everyone has taste, so what are you going to do?)
-
-
Audiobook Treat, Delightful, Short Listen. Laughed out loud and smiled!
- By Amanda Messina on 10-19-22
By: Jenny Lawson
-
Boom Town
- A Lake Wobegon Novel
- By: Garrison Keillor
- Narrated by: Garrison Keillor
- Length: 12 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Return to America’s most beloved fictional hometown! Lake Wobegon is having a boom year thanks to millennial entrepreneurship—AuntMildred’s.com Gourmet Meatloaf, for example, or Universal Fire, makers of artisanal firewood seasoned with sea salt. Meanwhile, the author flies in to give eulogies at the funerals of five classmates, including a couple whom he disliked, and he finds a wave of narcissism crashing on the rocks of Lutheran stoicism.
-
-
Hope you aren't conservative in any way.
- By Thomas S. Ashton on 04-27-22
By: Garrison Keillor
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The Speckled Beauty
- A Dog and His People
- By: Rick Bragg
- Narrated by: Rick Bragg
- Length: 6 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
From the best-selling, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of All Over but the Shoutin', the warmhearted and hilarious story of how his life was transformed by his love for a poorly behaved, half-blind stray dog.
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Finest Book on Audible, Bar None (imho)
- By Mary Burnight on 08-12-22
By: Rick Bragg
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Astor
- The Rise and Fall of an American Fortune
- By: Anderson Cooper, Katherine Howe
- Narrated by: Anderson Cooper
- Length: 8 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From 1783, when German immigrant John Jacob Astor first arrived in the United States, until 2009, when Brooke Astor’s son, Anthony Marshall, was convicted of defrauding his elderly mother, the Astor name occupied a unique place in American society. The family fortune, first made by a beaver trapping business that grew into an empire, was then amplified by holdings in Manhattan real estate. Over the ensuing generations, Astors ruled Gilded Age New York society and inserted themselves into political and cultural life, but also suffered the most famous loss on the Titanic.
-
-
A family first made, then destroyed by wealth.
- By Barbara W. on 09-23-23
By: Anderson Cooper, and others
-
Miss Marple: The Complete Short Stories
- A Miss Marple Collection
- By: Agatha Christie
- Narrated by: Juliet Stevenson
- Length: 12 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Miss Marple: The Complete Story Collection gathers together in one magnificent volume all of Agatha Christie’s short stories featuring her beloved intrepid investigator, Miss Marple. It’s an unparalleled compendium of murder, mayhem, mystery, and detection that represents some of the finest short form fiction in the crime fiction field, and is an essential omnibus for Christie fans.
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-
Classic Miss Marple - uneven narration
- By Lyric G. Eads on 11-09-22
By: Agatha Christie
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Two Nights in Lisbon
- A Novel
- By: Chris Pavone
- Narrated by: January LaVoy
- Length: 14 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Ariel Price wakes up in Lisbon, alone. Her husband is gone—no warning, no note, not answering his phone. Something is wrong. She starts with hotel security, then the police, then the American embassy, at each confronting questions she can’t fully answer: What exactly is John doing in Lisbon? Why would he drag her along on his business trip? Who would want to harm him? And why does Ariel know so little about her new—much younger—husband?
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-
Don’t bother reading unless you enjoy…
- By Cynthia on 05-29-22
By: Chris Pavone
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Masked Ball at Broxley Manor
- A Royal Spyness Novella
- By: Rhys Bowen
- Narrated by: Katherine Kellgren
- Length: 1 hr and 44 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
At the end of her first unsuccessful season out in society, Lady Georgiana has all but given up on attracting a suitable man - until she receives an invitation to a masked Halloween ball at Broxley Manor. Georgie is uncertain why she was invited, until she learns that the royal family intends to marry her off to a foreign prince, one reputed to be mad.
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Fun, light prequel
- By CMMV on 01-01-15
By: Rhys Bowen
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All Over But the Shoutin'
- By: Rick Bragg
- Narrated by: Rick Bragg
- Length: 2 hrs and 41 mins
- Abridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
This haunting, harrowing, gloriously moving recollection of a life on the American margin is the story of Rick Bragg, who grew up dirt-poor in northeastern Alabama, seemingly destined for either the cotton mills or the penitentiary, and instead became a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter for The New York Times. It is the story of Bragg's father, a hard-drinking man with a murderous temper and the habit of running out on the people who needed him most.
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ABRIDGED
- By Amazon Customer on 03-17-16
By: Rick Bragg
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The Travelling Cat Chronicles
- By: Hiro Arikawa, Philip Gabriel
- Narrated by: George Blagden
- Length: 5 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
With simple yet descriptive prose, this novel gives voice to Nana the cat and his owner, Satoru, as they take to the road on a journey with no other purpose than to visit three of Satoru's longtime friends. Or so Nana is led to believe. With his crooked tail - a sign of good fortune - and adventurous spirit, Nana is the perfect companion for the man who took him in as a stray. And as they travel in a silver van across Japan, with its ever-changing scenery and seasons, they will learn the true meaning of courage and gratitude, of loyalty and love.
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What a wonderful story
- By V. Brown on 11-22-18
By: Hiro Arikawa, and others
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Happy-Go-Lucky
- By: David Sedaris
- Narrated by: David Sedaris
- Length: 7 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Back when restaurant menus were still printed on paper, and wearing a mask—or not—was a decision made mostly on Halloween, David Sedaris spent his time doing normal things. As Happy-Go-Lucky opens, he is learning to shoot guns with his sister, visiting muddy flea markets in Serbia, buying gummy worms to feed to ants, and telling his nonagenarian father wheelchair jokes. But then the pandemic hits, and like so many others, he’s stuck in lockdown, unable to tour and read for audiences, the part of his work he loves most.
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Great except for an audio glitch
- By Rynnkins on 06-01-22
By: David Sedaris
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The Mysterious Affair at Styles and The Murder on the Links
- Agatha Christie's First Two Hercule Poirot Novels
- By: Agatha Christie
- Narrated by: Justin Longbourn
- Length: 11 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Agatha Christie's first two Poirot novels, narrated with a general-American accent. The Mysterious Affair at Styles: Someone has poisoned wealthy Emily Inglethorp. But who? And how? Everyone suspects Emily's young husband, Alfred...and Alfred seems to be actually trying to get arrested and charged.... The Murder on the Links: Poirot comes to France in response to a desperate plea for help to find his client already murdered - stabbed in the back and lying in an open grave. Brusque, arrogant Inspector Giraud thinks he knows who did it.
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Narrative is bad
- By M.L. Curry on 11-09-24
By: Agatha Christie
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Small Things Like These
- By: Claire Keegan
- Narrated by: Aidan Kelly
- Length: 1 hr and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
It is 1985 in a small Irish town. During the weeks leading up to Christmas, Bill Furlong, a coal merchant and family man, faces into his busiest season. Early one morning, while delivering an order to the local convent, Bill makes a discovery that forces him to confront both his past and the complicit silences of a town controlled by the church.
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Charming and Inspiring
- By David P on 09-05-22
By: Claire Keegan
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Bloodroot
- By: Amy Greene
- Narrated by: Lorna Raver, Kirby Heyborne, Jessie Bernstein, and others
- Length: 13 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Named for a flower whose blood-red sap possesses the power both to heal and poison, Bloodroot is a stunning fiction debut about the legacies - of magic and madness, faith and secrets, passion and loss - that haunt one family across the generations, from the Great Depression to today. The novel is told in a kaleidoscope of seamlessly woven voices and centers around an incendiary romance that consumes everyone in its path.
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Amazing story
- By MJ on 02-16-10
By: Amy Greene
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Vera Wong's Unsolicited Advice for Murderers
- By: Jesse Q. Sutanto
- Narrated by: Eunice Wong
- Length: 10 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Vera Wong is a lonely little old lady—ah, lady of a certain age—who lives above her forgotten tea shop in the middle of San Francisco’s Chinatown. Despite living alone, Vera is not needy, oh no. She likes nothing more than sipping on a good cup of Wulong and doing some healthy detective work on the Internet about what her Gen-Z son is up to. Then one morning, Vera trudges downstairs to find a curious thing—a dead man in the middle of her tea shop.
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So far,surprisingly charming-OUTSTANDING narration
- By Christine T on 03-20-23
By: Jesse Q. Sutanto
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The Colour of Magic
- Discworld, Book 1
- By: Terry Pratchett
- Narrated by: Colin Morgan, Peter Serafinowicz, Bill Nighy
- Length: 7 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Somewhere on the frontier between thought and reality exists the Discworld, a parallel time and place that might sound and smell very much like our own, but which looks completely different. Particularly as it’s carried though space on the back of a giant turtle (sex unknown). It plays by different rules. But then, some things are the same everywhere. The Disc’s very existence is about to be threatened by a strange new blight: the world’s first tourist, upon whose survival rests the peace and prosperity of the land.
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TERRIBLE Narration!
- By Kayla I on 07-08-22
By: Terry Pratchett
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Matrix
- A Novel
- By: Lauren Groff
- Narrated by: Adjoa Andoh
- Length: 8 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Cast out of the royal court by Eleanor of Aquitaine, deemed too coarse and rough-hewn for marriage or courtly life, seventeen-year-old Marie de France is sent to England to be the new prioress of an impoverished abbey, its nuns on the brink of starvation and beset by disease. At first taken aback by the severity of her new life, Marie finds focus and love in collective life with her singular and mercurial sisters. In this crucible, Marie steadily supplants her desire for family, for her homeland, for the passions of her youth with something new to her.
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Wonderful story well written and narratives
- By ReallyNelie on 09-25-21
By: Lauren Groff
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Local
- A Memoir
- By: Jessica Machado
- Narrated by: Mapuana Makia
- Length: 6 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Born and raised in Hawai‘i by a father whose ancestors are indigenous to the land and a mother from the American South, Jessica Machado wrestles with what it means to be “local.” Feeling separate from the history and tenets of Hawaiian culture that have been buried under the continental imports of malls and MTV, Jessica often sees her homeland reflected back to her from the tourist perspective—as an uncomplicated paradise. Her existence, however, feels far from that ideal. Balancing her parents’ divorce, an ailing mother, and growing anxiety, Jessica rebels.
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Authentic Aloha for all Things Local
- By Janice Hill on 01-27-23
By: Jessica Machado
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The Secret Life of Bees
- By: Sue Monk Kidd
- Narrated by: Jenna Lamia
- Length: 9 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Sue Monk Kidd's ravishing debut novel has stolen the hearts of reviewers and readers alike with its strong, assured voice. Set in South Carolina in 1964, The Secret Life of Bees tells the story of Lily Owens, whose life has been shaped around the blurred memory of the afternoon her mother was killed.
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Awesome narrator
- By Joey on 05-17-10
By: Sue Monk Kidd
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Like Family
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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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A famous writer describes her life growing up in foster care
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Running on Red Dog Road
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Gypsies, faith-healers, moonshiners, and snake handlers weave through Drema's childhood in 1940s Appalachia after her father is killed in the coal mines, her mother goes off to work as a Rosie the Riveter, and she is left in the care of devout Pentecostal grandparents. What follows is a spitfire of a memoir that feels like a novel with intrigue, sweeping emotion, and indisputable charm. Drema's coming of age is colored by tent revivals with Grandpa, poetry-writing hobos, and traveling carnivals, and through it all, she serves witness to a multi-generational family.
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Narrator’s attempt at a southern accent distracting to story
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Promise
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In the aftermath of a devastating tornado that rips through the town of Tupelo, Mississippi, at the height of the Great Depression, two women worlds apart - one Black, one White; one a great-grandmother, the other a teenager - fight for their families' survival in this lyrical and powerful novel.
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Mostly Disappointing
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The Collected Stories of Eudora Welty
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This complete collection includes all of the published stories of Eudora Welty. There are 41 stories in all, including those in the earlier collections A Curtain of Green, The Wide Net, The Golden Apples, and The Bride of the Innisfallen, as well as previously uncollected stories.
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Too Good For Audio
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Paradise
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In Paradise - her first novel since she was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature - Toni Morrison gives us a bravura performance. As the book begins deep in Oklahoma early one morning in 1976, nine men from Ruby (pop. 360), in defense of "the one all-black town worth the pain", assault the nearby Convent and the women in it. From the town's ancestral origins in 1890 to the fateful day of the assault, Paradise tells the story of a people ever mindful of the relationship between their spectacular history and a void.
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MORRISON AT HER MOST COMPLEX
- By Kennedi Hill on 11-07-19
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The Rock Orchard
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"Some women can touch a man and heal like Jesus. The man who sees sunrise from a Belle woman's bed will swear he's been born again." So begins Paula Wall's funny, poignant, and sexy novel, The Rock Orchard. Musette Belle could lay her hand on a baby's heart and see his life as if he'd already lived it. Even in death, she continues to shock the good citizens of Leaper's Fork, Tennessee, and her descendents are doing their best to carry on her legacy.
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Laugh Out Loud
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Owls Do Cry
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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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well told but a wee bit depressing.
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The Plague of Doves
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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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Avoid this Plague
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Other Voices, Other Rooms
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Story
At the age of 12, Joel Knox is summoned to meet the father who abandoned him at birth. But when Joel arrives at the decaying mansion in Skully's Landing, his father is nowhere in sight. What he finds instead is a sullen stepmother who delights in killing birds; an uncle with the face - and heart - of a debauched child; and a fearsome little girl named Idabel who may offer him the closest thing he has ever known to love.
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Capote’s coming of age story
- By Daniel Diffin on 11-08-23
By: Truman Capote
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Memphis
- A Novel
- By: Tara M. Stringfellow
- Narrated by: Karen Murray, Adenrele Ojo, Tara Stringfellow
- Length: 9 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
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Summer 1995: Ten-year-old Joan, her mother, and her younger sister flee her father’s explosive temper and seek refuge at her mother’s ancestral home in Memphis. This is not the first time violence has altered the course of the family’s trajectory. Half a century earlier, Joan’s grandfather built this majestic house in the historic Black neighborhood of Douglass—only to be lynched days after becoming the first Black detective in the city. Joan tries to settle into her new life, but family secrets cast a longer shadow than any of them expected.
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Awful narrator
- By Rachael edwards on 06-07-22
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Caramelo
- By: Sandra Cisneros
- Narrated by: Sandra Cisneros
- Length: 15 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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Lala Reyes’ grandmother is descended from a family of renowned rebozo, or shawl-makers. The striped (caramelo) is the most beautiful of all, and the one that makes its way, like the family history it has come to represent, into Lala’s possession. The novel opens with the Reyes’ annual car trip - a caravan overflowing with children, laughter, and quarrels - from Chicago to “the other side”, Mexico City. It is there, each year, that Lala hears her family’s stories, separating the truth from the “healthy lies” that have ricocheted from one generation to the next.
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Love, family, history, and fantasy, Caramelo
- By Michele on 08-07-20
By: Sandra Cisneros
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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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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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Wonderful magnificent stories beautifully told
- By Pedro Ramirez on 12-03-15
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The Visiting Privilege
- New and Collected Stories
- By: Joy Williams
- Narrated by: Richard Powers, Emily Woo Zeller, Elisabeth Rodgers, and others
- Length: 20 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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Joy Williams has been celebrated as a master of the short story for four decades, her renown passing from one generation to the next even in the shifting landscape of contemporary writing. And at long last the incredible scope of her singular achievement is put on display: 33 stories drawn from three much-lauded collections and another 13 appearing here for the first time in book form.
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I sure tried.
- By A.C. CALLOWAY on 01-28-24
By: Joy Williams
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The Twelve-Mile Straight
- A Novel
- By: Eleanor Henderson
- Narrated by: Allyson Johnson
- Length: 17 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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Cotton County, Georgia, 1930: In a house full of secrets, two babies - one light-skinned, the other dark - are born to Elma Jesup, a white sharecropper's daughter. Accused of her rape, field hand Genus Jackson is lynched and dragged behind a truck down the Twelve-Mile Straight, the road to the nearby town. In the aftermath, the farm's inhabitants are forced to contend with their complicity in a series of events that left a man dead and a family irrevocably fractured.
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Great read!
- By S. Clay on 11-01-17
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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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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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Great fun !!
- By Kim on 04-20-11
By: Haven Kimmel
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The Saturdays
- By: Elizabeth Enright
- Narrated by: Pamela Dillman
- Length: 4 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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The four Melendy children live with their father and Cuffy, their beloved housekeeper, in a worn but comfortable brownstone in New York City. There's thirteen-year-old Mona, who has decided to become an actress; twelve-year-old mischievous Rush; ten-year-old Randy who loves to dance and paint; and thoughtful Oliver, who is just six-years-old.
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Excellent for children and adults
- By Dale on 05-15-04
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Dandelion Wine
- By: Ray Bradbury
- Narrated by: David Aaron Baker
- Length: 8 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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Twelve-year-old Douglas Spaulding knows Green Town, Illinois, is as vast and deep as the whole wide world that lies beyond the city limits. It is a pair of brand-new tennis shoes, the first harvest of dandelions for Grandfather's renowned intoxicant, the distant clang of the trolley's bell on a hazy afternoon. It is yesteryear and tomorrow blended into an unforgettable always. But as young Douglas is about to discover, summer can be more than the repetition of established rituals whose mystical power holds time at bay.
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Turn to wonder and remember childhood summers
- By April Rose on 06-26-19
By: Ray Bradbury
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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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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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Mixed Bag
- By AuntGert on 09-22-20
By: T. C. Boyle
What listeners say about Nothing with Strings
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- D. J. F.
- 12-21-22
Southern charm
These are exquisite and sharply etched short stories, evoking small-town life in the American South with wit and nostalgia.
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- MissSusie66
- 12-22-11
Touching Short Stories
This was a neat collection of southern short stories I’m not sure why they say they are holiday themed because really they’re not, but good none the less. I would say the theme is aging & gardening, southern style.
Some of these stories were sad/touching, some were funny, most were both but all left me wanting more. Just a warning these aren’t happy stories but they are good stories I would recommend this for southern fiction lovers.
I listened to this one on audio narrated by, Lorna Raver who as always does a great job.
3 ½ Stars
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4 people found this helpful
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Overall
- Mary
- 12-31-08
A real jewel.
Bailey White is a master of the craft. Again, wonderful story writing as only Bailey can do it. Lorna Raver somehow puts it all together and breaths life into the story. You can really feel and live the stories. This is true treasure to keep in my audio library to listen to again and again. Bailey White can always be enjoyed and will never grow dull or out of date. This is a true classic just like a favorite pair of jeans.
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8 people found this helpful
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- Leslie D.
- 11-15-11
Strange Collection
These were odd stories, and an even stranger narrator. Hard to listen to, but then I can't complain - it was free!
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2 people found this helpful
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- Lili
- 08-18-23
Not the best Bailey White book
I love Bailey White's earlier books, have them on my bookshelf. I wish Audible would produce audio versions of those books. But this book by contrast is a disappointment. The stories are, hmmm, odd? Some are kinda sad, some end abruptly, and some are just like, why?
I could live with that, but it's the narration that takes the whole enterprise down. I'm sorry, I love a good southern accent more than most people, but this lady, Lorna Raver, is so over the top with her accent it's like she's doing a parody of a southern accent.
Audible, please produce Bailey White's earlier books Mama Makes Up Her Mind, and Quite a Year for Plums. And get Helen Ellis or Rick Bragg to narrate, because they know their way around fabulous southern accents. Thx.
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- Teresa
- 02-13-12
Wonderful narration!
Southern culture is heard here in these wonderful stories by Bailey White. I heard it first on NPR.
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2 people found this helpful
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- Kim
- 04-13-21
whimsical storytelling at its finest
I fell in love with Bailey White years ago when my daughter and I read Mama Makes Up Her Mind aloud together. since that time, we have both been avid fans, and this book doesn't disappoint. What a delight to be able to listen to this book, chock full of whimsy, and lots of fun. Ms Whites books are best shared aloud with family and friends. No matter where you grow up, she brings out the southern lady hidden within us all. Listening to any of her books is time well spent, and will create a cherished memory between you and the people you share it with. I hope one day Audible will offer what my daughter and I affectionately call " the Mama book." until then, enjoy this little gem.
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2 people found this helpful
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- bruce
- 12-12-11
Would not recommend
What disappointed you about Nothing with Strings?
Could not tell when one short story started and one ended
I thought they would be Christmas stories, they were not...
All very depressing
Would not recommend to ANYONE
Horrible!!!
We read it as a book club and it was unanimous
You didn’t love this book... but did it have any redeeming qualities?
The voices were not BAD
Any additional comments?
I am surprised NPR would put these out
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3 people found this helpful