Scaffolding
A Novel
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
Prime members: New to Audible?Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Scaffolding
Buy for $17.49
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
-
Narrated by:
-
Lauren Elkin
-
By:
-
Lauren Elkin
About this listen
A novel of Paris, desire, love, psychoanalysis, and the turbulent affairs of two couples across time.
After a miscarriage and a breakdown, Anna, a psychoanalyst, finds herself unable to return to work, obsessing instead over a kitchen renovation and befriending a new neighbor-a younger woman called Clementine who has just moved into the building and is part of a radical feminist collective.
Forty years earlier, in the same apartment, Florence and Henry are renovating their kitchen. Florence is finishing her degree in psychology and attending feminist meetings and Jacques Lacan's infamous seminars. She is hoping to conceive their first child, though Henry isn't sure he's ready for fatherhood.
Two couples in two separate but similar times-set against a backdrop of political disappointment and intellectual controversy-face the challenges of marriage, fidelity, and pregnancy. Lauren Elkin's Scaffolding is about the way our homes hold communal memories of all their inhabitants and their stories; about the bonds we create, and the difficulty of ever fully severing them; about the ways people we've loved live on in us.
©2024 Lauren Elkin (P)2024 TantorListeners also enjoyed...
-
The Anthropologists
- By: Aysegül Savas
- Narrated by: Kathryn Aboya
- Length: 4 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 42
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 39
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 39
Asya and Manu are looking at apartments, envisioning their future in a foreign city. What should their life here look like? What rituals will structure their days? Whom can they consider family? As the young couple dreams about the possibilities of each new listing, Asya, a documentarian, gathers footage from the neighborhood like an anthropologist observing local customs. “Forget about daily life,” chides her grandmother on the phone. “We named you for a whole continent and you’re filming a park.”
-
3 out of 5 stars
-
Can't say it's good
- By Moraz on 12-22-24
By: Aysegül Savas
-
Us Fools
- By: Nora Lange
- Narrated by: Emily Lawrence
- Length: 13 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall3 out of 5 stars 11
-
Performance3.5 out of 5 stars 10
-
Story3 out of 5 stars 10
Joanne and Bernadette Fareown are raised on their family farm in rural Illinois, keenly affected by their parents’ volatile relationship and mounting financial debt, haunted by the cursed history of the women in their family. Largely left to their own devices, the sisters educate themselves on Greek mythology, feminism, and Virginia Woolf, realizing they must find unique ways to cope in these antagonistic conditions, questioning the American Dream as the rest of the country abandons their community in crisis.
-
1 out of 5 stars
-
The story
- By Ashwoman on 01-14-25
By: Nora Lange
-
The Repeat Room
- A Novel
- By: Jesse Ball
- Narrated by: Erik Bloomquist
- Length: 4 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall3.5 out of 5 stars 10
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 8
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 8
In a speculative future, Abel, a menial worker, is called to serve in a secretive and fabled jury system. At the heart of this system is the repeat room, where a single juror, selected from hundreds of candidates, is able to inhabit the defendant's lived experience, to see as if through their eyes.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
kept me engaged
- By Nia S on 04-07-25
By: Jesse Ball
-
The Coin
- A Novel
- By: Yasmin Zaher
- Narrated by: Sarah Agha
- Length: 6 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall3 out of 5 stars 30
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 27
-
Story3 out of 5 stars 27
The Coin’s narrator is a wealthy Palestinian woman with impeccable style and meticulous hygiene. And yet the ideal self, the ideal life, remains just out of reach: her inheritance is inaccessible, her homeland exists only in her memory, and her attempt to thrive in America seems doomed from the start. In New York, she strives to put down roots. She teaches at a school for underprivileged boys, where her eccentric methods cross boundaries. She befriends a homeless swindler, and the two participate in an intercontinental scheme reselling Birkin bags.
-
1 out of 5 stars
-
Interview of author on podcast piqued interest
- By amybarnard on 08-03-24
By: Yasmin Zaher
-
Shred Sisters
- A Novel
- By: Betsy Lerner
- Narrated by: Rebecca Lowman
- Length: 7 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 118
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 113
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 113
It is said that when one person in a family is unstable, the whole family is destabilized. Meet the Shreds. Olivia is the sister in the spotlight until her stunning confidence becomes erratic and unpredictable, a hurricane leaving people wrecked in her wake. Younger sister Amy, cautious and studious to the core, believes in facts, proof, and the empirical world. None of that explains what’s happening to Ollie, whose physical beauty and charisma mask the mental illness that will shatter Amy’s carefully constructed life.
-
2 out of 5 stars
-
Fairly common storyline
- By Placeholder on 10-22-24
By: Betsy Lerner
-
Theory & Practice
- By: Michelle de Kretser
- Narrated by: Melissa Madden Gray
- Length: 4 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall3.5 out of 5 stars 3
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 3
-
Story3.5 out of 5 stars 3
It's 1986, and "beautiful, radical ideas" are in the air. The narrator of Theory & Practice, a young woman originally from Sri Lanka, arrives in Melbourne for graduate school to research the novels of Virginia Woolf. In the bohemian neighborhood of St. Kilda she meets artists, activists, students—and Kit. He claims to be in a "deconstructed relationship." They become lovers, and the narrator's feminism comes up against her jealousy. Meanwhile, an entry in Woolf's diary upends what the narrator knows about her literary idol, and throws her own work into disarray.
-
The Anthropologists
- By: Aysegül Savas
- Narrated by: Kathryn Aboya
- Length: 4 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 42
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 39
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 39
Asya and Manu are looking at apartments, envisioning their future in a foreign city. What should their life here look like? What rituals will structure their days? Whom can they consider family? As the young couple dreams about the possibilities of each new listing, Asya, a documentarian, gathers footage from the neighborhood like an anthropologist observing local customs. “Forget about daily life,” chides her grandmother on the phone. “We named you for a whole continent and you’re filming a park.”
-
3 out of 5 stars
-
Can't say it's good
- By Moraz on 12-22-24
By: Aysegül Savas
-
Us Fools
- By: Nora Lange
- Narrated by: Emily Lawrence
- Length: 13 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall3 out of 5 stars 11
-
Performance3.5 out of 5 stars 10
-
Story3 out of 5 stars 10
Joanne and Bernadette Fareown are raised on their family farm in rural Illinois, keenly affected by their parents’ volatile relationship and mounting financial debt, haunted by the cursed history of the women in their family. Largely left to their own devices, the sisters educate themselves on Greek mythology, feminism, and Virginia Woolf, realizing they must find unique ways to cope in these antagonistic conditions, questioning the American Dream as the rest of the country abandons their community in crisis.
-
1 out of 5 stars
-
The story
- By Ashwoman on 01-14-25
By: Nora Lange
-
The Repeat Room
- A Novel
- By: Jesse Ball
- Narrated by: Erik Bloomquist
- Length: 4 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall3.5 out of 5 stars 10
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 8
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 8
In a speculative future, Abel, a menial worker, is called to serve in a secretive and fabled jury system. At the heart of this system is the repeat room, where a single juror, selected from hundreds of candidates, is able to inhabit the defendant's lived experience, to see as if through their eyes.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
kept me engaged
- By Nia S on 04-07-25
By: Jesse Ball
-
The Coin
- A Novel
- By: Yasmin Zaher
- Narrated by: Sarah Agha
- Length: 6 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall3 out of 5 stars 30
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 27
-
Story3 out of 5 stars 27
The Coin’s narrator is a wealthy Palestinian woman with impeccable style and meticulous hygiene. And yet the ideal self, the ideal life, remains just out of reach: her inheritance is inaccessible, her homeland exists only in her memory, and her attempt to thrive in America seems doomed from the start. In New York, she strives to put down roots. She teaches at a school for underprivileged boys, where her eccentric methods cross boundaries. She befriends a homeless swindler, and the two participate in an intercontinental scheme reselling Birkin bags.
-
1 out of 5 stars
-
Interview of author on podcast piqued interest
- By amybarnard on 08-03-24
By: Yasmin Zaher
-
Shred Sisters
- A Novel
- By: Betsy Lerner
- Narrated by: Rebecca Lowman
- Length: 7 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 118
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 113
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 113
It is said that when one person in a family is unstable, the whole family is destabilized. Meet the Shreds. Olivia is the sister in the spotlight until her stunning confidence becomes erratic and unpredictable, a hurricane leaving people wrecked in her wake. Younger sister Amy, cautious and studious to the core, believes in facts, proof, and the empirical world. None of that explains what’s happening to Ollie, whose physical beauty and charisma mask the mental illness that will shatter Amy’s carefully constructed life.
-
2 out of 5 stars
-
Fairly common storyline
- By Placeholder on 10-22-24
By: Betsy Lerner
-
Theory & Practice
- By: Michelle de Kretser
- Narrated by: Melissa Madden Gray
- Length: 4 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall3.5 out of 5 stars 3
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 3
-
Story3.5 out of 5 stars 3
It's 1986, and "beautiful, radical ideas" are in the air. The narrator of Theory & Practice, a young woman originally from Sri Lanka, arrives in Melbourne for graduate school to research the novels of Virginia Woolf. In the bohemian neighborhood of St. Kilda she meets artists, activists, students—and Kit. He claims to be in a "deconstructed relationship." They become lovers, and the narrator's feminism comes up against her jealousy. Meanwhile, an entry in Woolf's diary upends what the narrator knows about her literary idol, and throws her own work into disarray.
-
Held
- A Novel
- By: Anne Michaels
- Narrated by: Anne Michaels
- Length: 4 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 50
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 46
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 46
1917. On a battlefield near the River Escaut, John lies in the aftermath of a blast, unable to move or feel his legs. Struggling to focus his thoughts, he is lost to memory as the snow falls—a chance encounter in a pub by a railway, a hot bath with his lover on a winter night. 1920. John has returned from war to North Yorkshire, near a different river. He is alive but still not whole. Reunited with Helena, an artist, he reopens his photography business and tries to keep on living. But the past erupts insistently into the present, as ghosts begin to surface in his pictures
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Would give six stars if possible
- By love it on 08-31-24
By: Anne Michaels
-
Dear Dickhead
- A Novel
- By: Virginie Despentes, Frank Wynne - translator
- Narrated by: Gina Rogers, Patrick Zeller
- Length: 8 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 4
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 3
-
Story3.5 out of 5 stars 3
Oscar is a B-list novelist in his forties. He used to be an alcoholic and a cokehead, but now he keeps himself busy by ranting on social media. When Rebecca, an actress whose looks he insulted, sends him an angry email, they strike up a combative correspondence—at the very moment that Oscar is accused of sexual harassment by his former publicist. What ensues is a no-holds-barred conversation about life under the patriarchy, and above all about addiction—to drugs, to alcohol, to the internet, to rage.
-
3 out of 5 stars
-
Great reads
- By MKAT on 03-04-25
By: Virginie Despentes, and others
-
You Dreamed of Empires
- A Novel
- By: Álvaro Enrigue, Natasha Wimmer - translator
- Narrated by: Gabriel Porras
- Length: 6 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 190
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 179
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 179
One morning in 1519, conquistador Hernán Cortés enters the city of Tenochtitlan – today's Mexico City. Later that day, he will meet the emperor Moctezuma in a collision of two worlds, two empires, two languages, two possible futures.
-
1 out of 5 stars
-
Confusing and Difficult to Understand
- By francine steelman on 03-02-24
By: Álvaro Enrigue, and others
-
The Book of George
- A Novel
- By: Kate Greathead
- Narrated by: Blair Baker
- Length: 9 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall3.5 out of 5 stars 17
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 16
-
Story3.5 out of 5 stars 16
If you haven’t had the misfortune of dating a George, you know someone who has. He’s a young man brimming with potential but incapable of following through; sweet yet noncommittal to his long-suffering girlfriend; distant from but still reliant on his mother; charmingly funny one minute, sullenly brooding the next. Here, Kate Greathead paints one particular, unforgettable George in a series of droll and surprisingly poignant snapshots of his life over two decades.
-
3 out of 5 stars
-
Lots of potential, little payoff
- By Chalin Smith on 10-24-24
By: Kate Greathead
-
My Friends
- A Novel
- By: Hisham Matar
- Narrated by: Hisham Matar
- Length: 13 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 125
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 113
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 113
One evening, as a young boy growing up in Benghazi, Khaled hears a bizarre short story read aloud on the radio, about a man being eaten alive by a cat, and has the sense that his life has been changed forever. Obsessed by the power of those words—and by their enigmatic author, Hosam Zowa—Khaled eventually embarks on a journey that will take him far from home, to pursue a life of the mind at the University of Edinburgh.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Beautifully written
- By Anonymous User on 06-24-24
By: Hisham Matar
-
Small Rain
- A Novel
- By: Garth Greenwell
- Narrated by: Garth Greenwell
- Length: 9 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 43
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 40
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 40
A poet's life is turned inside out by a sudden, wrenching pain. The pain brings him to his knees, and eventually to the ICU. Confined to bed, plunged into the dysfunctional American healthcare system, he struggles to understand what is happening to his body, as someone who has lived for many years in his mind. This is a searching, sweeping novel set at the furthest edges of human experience, where the forces that give life value—art, memory, poetry, music, care—are thrown into sharp relief.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
A Masterpiece
- By Herluf Kanstrup on 09-22-24
By: Garth Greenwell
-
Rejection
- Fiction
- By: Tony Tulathimutte
- Narrated by: Micky Shiloah, Allyson Ryan, Quincy Surasmith, and others
- Length: 8 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 237
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 223
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 223
Sharply observant and outrageously funny, Rejection is a provocative plunge into the touchiest problems of modern life. The seven connected stories seamlessly transition between the personal crises of a complex ensemble and the comic tragedies of sex, relationships, identity, and the internet.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Trigger warning for one chapter, otherwise really creative
- By Amazon Customer on 10-06-24
-
This Strange Eventful History
- By: Claire Messud
- Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell
- Length: 16 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 64
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 57
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 57
Over seven decades, from 1940 to 2010, the pieds-noirs Cassars live in an itinerant state—separated in the chaos of World War II, running from a complicated colonial homeland, and, after Algerian independence, without a homeland at all. This Strange Eventful History, told with historical sweep, is above all a family story: of patriarch Gaston and his wife Lucienne, whose myth of perfect love sustains them and stifles their children; of François and Denise, devoted siblings connected by their family's strangeness; of François's union with Barbara; of Chloe, the result of that union.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
Be Prepared for a Jarring Narration
- By Thomp/Suis on 05-17-24
By: Claire Messud
-
Good Material
- A Novel
- By: Dolly Alderton
- Narrated by: Arthur Darvill, Vanessa Kirby
- Length: 9 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 790
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 757
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 757
Andy loves Jen. Jen loved Andy. And he can't work out why she stopped. Now he is. . . Without a home Waiting for his stand-up career to take off Wondering why everyone else around him seems to have grown up while he wasn't looking. Set adrift on the sea of heartbreak, Andy clings to the idea of solving the puzzle of his ruined relationship. Because if he can find the answer to that, then maybe Jen can find her way back to him. But Andy still has a lot to learn, not least his ex-girlfriend's side of the story…
-
3 out of 5 stars
-
not what I expected
- By Amazon Customer on 05-01-24
By: Dolly Alderton
-
Every Arc Bends Its Radian
- By: Sergio De La Pava
- Narrated by: Lee Osorio
- Length: 7 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall3.5 out of 5 stars 8
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 7
-
Story3.5 out of 5 stars 7
Riv—poet, philosopher, private eye—arrives in Cali, Colombia, hoping to find reprieve. Running away from an unspeakable event surrounding his ex Jane, Riv accidentally connects with his cousin Mauro and family friend Carlotta, who asks him to find her daughter Angelica Alfa-Ochoa. No sooner is Riv on the trail when it becomes clear that not only are the cops not looking for Angelica, but they are actively preventing him from finding her.
-
1 out of 5 stars
-
The silliness of it all
- By James on 02-23-25
-
Audition
- A Novel
- By: Katie Kitamura
- Narrated by: Traci Kato-Kiriyama
- Length: 4 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall3.5 out of 5 stars 29
-
Performance3.5 out of 5 stars 28
-
Story3.5 out of 5 stars 28
Two people meet for lunch in a Manhattan restaurant. She’s an accomplished actress in rehearsals for an upcoming premiere. He’s attractive, troubling, young—young enough to be her son. Who is he to her, and who is she to him? In this compulsively readable, brilliantly constructed novel, two competing narratives unspool, rewriting our understanding of the roles we play every day–partner, parent, creator, muse–and the truths every performance masks, especially from those who think they know us most intimately.
-
2 out of 5 stars
-
Bizarre
- By Kevin on 04-23-25
By: Katie Kitamura
-
Orbital
- By: Samantha Harvey
- Narrated by: Sarah Naudi
- Length: 5 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 410
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 368
-
Story3.5 out of 5 stars 368
A slender novel of epic power and the winner of the Booker Prize 2024, Orbital deftly snapshots one day in the lives of six women and men traveling through space. Selected for one of the last space station missions of its kind before the program is dismantled, these astronauts and cosmonauts—from America, Russia, Italy, Britain, and Japan—have left their lives behind to travel at a speed of over seventeen thousand miles an hour as the earth reels below.
-
2 out of 5 stars
-
Dull
- By ELLEZEE on 02-03-24
By: Samantha Harvey
People who viewed this also viewed...
-
Flâneuse
- Women Walk the City in Paris, New York, Tokyo, Venice, and London
- By: Lauren Elkin
- Narrated by: Abby Craden
- Length: 9 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 33
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 29
-
Story3.5 out of 5 stars 29
The flâneur is the quintessentially masculine figure of privilege and leisure who strides the capitals of the world with abandon. But it is the flâneuse who captures the imagination of the cultural critic Lauren Elkin. In her wonderfully gender-bending new book, the flâneuse is a "determined, resourceful individual keenly attuned to the creative potential of the city and the liberating possibilities of a good walk." Virginia Woolf called it "street haunting"; Holly Golightly epitomized it in Breakfast at Tiffany's; and Patti Smith did it in her own inimitable style in 1970s NYC.
-
1 out of 5 stars
-
rambling unfocused
- By Peachy2 on 12-18-19
By: Lauren Elkin
-
Small Rain
- A Novel
- By: Garth Greenwell
- Narrated by: Garth Greenwell
- Length: 9 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 43
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 40
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 40
A poet's life is turned inside out by a sudden, wrenching pain. The pain brings him to his knees, and eventually to the ICU. Confined to bed, plunged into the dysfunctional American healthcare system, he struggles to understand what is happening to his body, as someone who has lived for many years in his mind. This is a searching, sweeping novel set at the furthest edges of human experience, where the forces that give life value—art, memory, poetry, music, care—are thrown into sharp relief.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
A Masterpiece
- By Herluf Kanstrup on 09-22-24
By: Garth Greenwell
-
Shred Sisters
- A Novel
- By: Betsy Lerner
- Narrated by: Rebecca Lowman
- Length: 7 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 118
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 113
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 113
It is said that when one person in a family is unstable, the whole family is destabilized. Meet the Shreds. Olivia is the sister in the spotlight until her stunning confidence becomes erratic and unpredictable, a hurricane leaving people wrecked in her wake. Younger sister Amy, cautious and studious to the core, believes in facts, proof, and the empirical world. None of that explains what’s happening to Ollie, whose physical beauty and charisma mask the mental illness that will shatter Amy’s carefully constructed life.
-
2 out of 5 stars
-
Fairly common storyline
- By Placeholder on 10-22-24
By: Betsy Lerner
-
The Empusium
- A Health Resort Horror Story
- By: Olga Tokarczuk
- Narrated by: Antonia Lloyd-Jones, Natasha Soudek
- Length: 11 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall3.5 out of 5 stars 72
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 67
-
Story3.5 out of 5 stars 67
September 1913. A young Pole suffering from tuberculosis arrives at Wilhelm Opitz’s Guesthouse for Gentlemen in the village of Görbersdorf, a health resort in the Silesian mountains. Every evening the residents gather to imbibe the hallucinogenic local liqueur and debate the great issues of the day: Monarchy or democracy? Do devils exist? Are women born inferior? War or peace? Meanwhile, disturbing things are happening in the guesthouse and the surrounding hills. Someone—or something—seems to be watching, attempting to infiltrate this cloistered world.
-
3 out of 5 stars
-
Never ending Misogyny
- By Nina O on 10-11-24
By: Olga Tokarczuk
-
Us Fools
- By: Nora Lange
- Narrated by: Emily Lawrence
- Length: 13 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall3 out of 5 stars 11
-
Performance3.5 out of 5 stars 10
-
Story3 out of 5 stars 10
Joanne and Bernadette Fareown are raised on their family farm in rural Illinois, keenly affected by their parents’ volatile relationship and mounting financial debt, haunted by the cursed history of the women in their family. Largely left to their own devices, the sisters educate themselves on Greek mythology, feminism, and Virginia Woolf, realizing they must find unique ways to cope in these antagonistic conditions, questioning the American Dream as the rest of the country abandons their community in crisis.
-
1 out of 5 stars
-
The story
- By Ashwoman on 01-14-25
By: Nora Lange
-
Bad Habit
- A Novel
- By: Alana S. Portero, Mara Faye Lethem - translator
- Narrated by: Alexandra Grey
- Length: 5 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 5
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 5
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 5
Anchored by the voice of its sweet and defiant narrator, Bad Habit casts a trans woman’s trying youth as a heartfelt odyssey. Raised in an animated yet impoverished blue-collar neighborhood, Alana S. Portero’s protagonist struggles to find her place. As the city around her changes–the heroin epidemic that ravages Madrid through the '80s and '90s, rallying calls of worker solidarity and the pulsing beat of the city's night scene– she becomes increasingly detached from the world and, most crucially, herself.
By: Alana S. Portero, and others
-
Flâneuse
- Women Walk the City in Paris, New York, Tokyo, Venice, and London
- By: Lauren Elkin
- Narrated by: Abby Craden
- Length: 9 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 33
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 29
-
Story3.5 out of 5 stars 29
The flâneur is the quintessentially masculine figure of privilege and leisure who strides the capitals of the world with abandon. But it is the flâneuse who captures the imagination of the cultural critic Lauren Elkin. In her wonderfully gender-bending new book, the flâneuse is a "determined, resourceful individual keenly attuned to the creative potential of the city and the liberating possibilities of a good walk." Virginia Woolf called it "street haunting"; Holly Golightly epitomized it in Breakfast at Tiffany's; and Patti Smith did it in her own inimitable style in 1970s NYC.
-
1 out of 5 stars
-
rambling unfocused
- By Peachy2 on 12-18-19
By: Lauren Elkin
-
Small Rain
- A Novel
- By: Garth Greenwell
- Narrated by: Garth Greenwell
- Length: 9 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 43
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 40
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 40
A poet's life is turned inside out by a sudden, wrenching pain. The pain brings him to his knees, and eventually to the ICU. Confined to bed, plunged into the dysfunctional American healthcare system, he struggles to understand what is happening to his body, as someone who has lived for many years in his mind. This is a searching, sweeping novel set at the furthest edges of human experience, where the forces that give life value—art, memory, poetry, music, care—are thrown into sharp relief.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
A Masterpiece
- By Herluf Kanstrup on 09-22-24
By: Garth Greenwell
-
Shred Sisters
- A Novel
- By: Betsy Lerner
- Narrated by: Rebecca Lowman
- Length: 7 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 118
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 113
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 113
It is said that when one person in a family is unstable, the whole family is destabilized. Meet the Shreds. Olivia is the sister in the spotlight until her stunning confidence becomes erratic and unpredictable, a hurricane leaving people wrecked in her wake. Younger sister Amy, cautious and studious to the core, believes in facts, proof, and the empirical world. None of that explains what’s happening to Ollie, whose physical beauty and charisma mask the mental illness that will shatter Amy’s carefully constructed life.
-
2 out of 5 stars
-
Fairly common storyline
- By Placeholder on 10-22-24
By: Betsy Lerner
-
The Empusium
- A Health Resort Horror Story
- By: Olga Tokarczuk
- Narrated by: Antonia Lloyd-Jones, Natasha Soudek
- Length: 11 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall3.5 out of 5 stars 72
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 67
-
Story3.5 out of 5 stars 67
September 1913. A young Pole suffering from tuberculosis arrives at Wilhelm Opitz’s Guesthouse for Gentlemen in the village of Görbersdorf, a health resort in the Silesian mountains. Every evening the residents gather to imbibe the hallucinogenic local liqueur and debate the great issues of the day: Monarchy or democracy? Do devils exist? Are women born inferior? War or peace? Meanwhile, disturbing things are happening in the guesthouse and the surrounding hills. Someone—or something—seems to be watching, attempting to infiltrate this cloistered world.
-
3 out of 5 stars
-
Never ending Misogyny
- By Nina O on 10-11-24
By: Olga Tokarczuk
-
Us Fools
- By: Nora Lange
- Narrated by: Emily Lawrence
- Length: 13 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall3 out of 5 stars 11
-
Performance3.5 out of 5 stars 10
-
Story3 out of 5 stars 10
Joanne and Bernadette Fareown are raised on their family farm in rural Illinois, keenly affected by their parents’ volatile relationship and mounting financial debt, haunted by the cursed history of the women in their family. Largely left to their own devices, the sisters educate themselves on Greek mythology, feminism, and Virginia Woolf, realizing they must find unique ways to cope in these antagonistic conditions, questioning the American Dream as the rest of the country abandons their community in crisis.
-
1 out of 5 stars
-
The story
- By Ashwoman on 01-14-25
By: Nora Lange
-
Bad Habit
- A Novel
- By: Alana S. Portero, Mara Faye Lethem - translator
- Narrated by: Alexandra Grey
- Length: 5 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 5
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 5
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 5
Anchored by the voice of its sweet and defiant narrator, Bad Habit casts a trans woman’s trying youth as a heartfelt odyssey. Raised in an animated yet impoverished blue-collar neighborhood, Alana S. Portero’s protagonist struggles to find her place. As the city around her changes–the heroin epidemic that ravages Madrid through the '80s and '90s, rallying calls of worker solidarity and the pulsing beat of the city's night scene– she becomes increasingly detached from the world and, most crucially, herself.
By: Alana S. Portero, and others
-
Praiseworthy
- By: Alexis Wright
- Narrated by: Jacqui Katona
- Length: 36 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall5 out of 5 stars 4
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 4
-
Story5 out of 5 stars 4
In a small town in the north of Australia, a mysterious cloud heralds both an ecological catastrophe and a gathering of the ancestors. A crazed visionary looks to donkeys to solve the global climate crisis and the economic dependency of the Aboriginal people. His wife, seeking solace from his madness, follows the dance of butterflies and scours the internet to find out how her Aboriginal/Chinese family could be repatriated to China. One of their sons, named Aboriginal Sovereignty, is determined to commit suicide.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Beautiful, powerful book full of poetry
- By Guy on 11-11-24
By: Alexis Wright
-
The Coin
- A Novel
- By: Yasmin Zaher
- Narrated by: Sarah Agha
- Length: 6 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall3 out of 5 stars 30
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 27
-
Story3 out of 5 stars 27
The Coin’s narrator is a wealthy Palestinian woman with impeccable style and meticulous hygiene. And yet the ideal self, the ideal life, remains just out of reach: her inheritance is inaccessible, her homeland exists only in her memory, and her attempt to thrive in America seems doomed from the start. In New York, she strives to put down roots. She teaches at a school for underprivileged boys, where her eccentric methods cross boundaries. She befriends a homeless swindler, and the two participate in an intercontinental scheme reselling Birkin bags.
-
1 out of 5 stars
-
Interview of author on podcast piqued interest
- By amybarnard on 08-03-24
By: Yasmin Zaher
-
Art Monsters
- Unruly Bodies in Feminist Art
- By: Lauren Elkin
- Narrated by: Lauren Elkin
- Length: 9 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall5 out of 5 stars 5
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 5
-
Story5 out of 5 stars 5
Art Monsters is a landmark feminist intervention in the way we think about women's stories and bodies, calling attention to a radical genealogy of feminist art that not only reacts against patriarchy but redefines its own aesthetic aims. Exploring a rich lineage of visual artists, thinkers, and writers, Elkin examines the ways feminists have confronted the problem of how to tell the truth of their experiences as bodies.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
This book changed me.
- By Sonni Adams on 12-31-24
By: Lauren Elkin
-
Colored Television
- A Novel
- By: Danzy Senna
- Narrated by: Kristen Ariza
- Length: 10 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 315
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 290
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 290
Jane has high hopes her life is about to turn around. After years of living precariously, she, her painter husband, Lenny, and their two kids have landed a stint as house sitters in a friend’s luxurious home high in the hills above Los Angeles, a gig that coincides magically with Jane’s sabbatical. If she can just finish her latest novel, Nusu Nusu, the centuries-spanning epic Lenny refers to as her “mulatto War and Peace,” she’ll have tenure and some semblance of stability and success within her grasp. But things don’t work out quite as hoped.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
Frustrating
- By Carolyn White on 12-12-24
By: Danzy Senna
-
Our Evenings
- A Novel
- By: Alan Hollinghurst
- Narrated by: Prasanna Puwanarajah
- Length: 16 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 103
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 91
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 91
Dave Win, the son of a Burmese man he’s never met and a British dressmaker, is thirteen years old when he gets a scholarship to a top boarding school. With the doors of elite English society cracked open for him, heady new possibilities emerge, even as Dave is exposed to the envy and viciousness of his wealthy classmates.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Sublime Collaboration
- By Phip Herrick on 11-20-24
-
August Blue
- A Novel
- By: Deborah Levy
- Narrated by: Alix Dunmore
- Length: 4 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 27
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 22
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 22
At the height of her career, the piano virtuoso Elsa M. Anderson—former child prodigy, now in her thirties—walks off the stage in Vienna, mid-performance. Now she is in Athens, watching an uncannily familiar woman purchase a pair of mechanical dancing horses at a flea market. Elsa wants the horses too, but there are no more for sale. She drifts to the ferry port, on the run from her talent and her history. So begins her journey across Europe, shadowed by the elusive woman who seems to be her double.
-
3 out of 5 stars
-
Unsure about this
- By Maryanne T. on 12-31-23
By: Deborah Levy
-
The Book of Love
- A Novel
- By: Kelly Link
- Narrated by: January LaVoy
- Length: 23 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall3.5 out of 5 stars 159
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 150
-
Story3.5 out of 5 stars 150
In the acclaimed first novel from short story virtuoso and Pulitzer Prize finalist Kelly Link, three teenagers become pawns in a supernatural power struggle.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Great book.
- By T on 04-06-25
By: Kelly Link
-
Several People Are Typing
- A Novel (Good Morning America Book Club)
- By: Calvin Kasulke
- Narrated by: MacLeod Andrews, Neil Shah, Dani Martineck, and others
- Length: 3 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 67
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 58
-
Story3.5 out of 5 stars 58
Gerald, a mid-level employee of a New York-based public relations firm, has been uploaded into the company’s internal Slack channels - at least his consciousness has. His colleagues assume it’s an elaborate gag to exploit the new work-from-home policy, but now that Gerald’s productivity is through the roof, his bosses are only too happy to let him work from...wherever he says he is. Faced with the looming abyss of a disembodied life online, Gerald enlists his coworker Pradeep to help him escape and to find out what happened to his body.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Spooky, funny, surprisingly touching
- By TD on 11-03-23
By: Calvin Kasulke
-
American Rapture
- By: CJ Leede
- Narrated by: Moniqua Plante
- Length: 14 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 121
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 116
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 116
A virus is spreading across America, transforming the infected and making them feral with lust. Sophie, a good Catholic girl, must traverse the hellscape of the midwest to try to find her family while the world around her burns. Along the way she discovers there are far worse fates than dying a virgin… The end times are coming.
-
3 out of 5 stars
-
Lord, let's survive the apocalypse as a horny teen
- By Megan on 11-02-24
By: CJ Leede
-
Crush
- A Novel
- By: Ada Calhoun
- Narrated by: Robyn Maryke
- Length: 5 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 20
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 19
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 19
She’s happy and settled and productive and content in her full life—a child, a career, an admirable marriage, deep friendships, happy parents, and a spouse she still loves. But when her husband urges her to address what the narrow labels of “husband” and “wife” force them to edit out of their lives, the very best kind of hell breaks loose. Using the author’s personal experiences as a jumping-off point, Crush is about the danger and liberation of chasing desire, the havoc it can wreak, and most of all the clear sense of self one finds when the storm passes.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
This Spoke to my soul
- By Lloyda on 04-03-25
By: Ada Calhoun
-
Greek Lessons
- A Novel
- By: Han Kang, Deborah Smith - translator, Emily Yae Won - translator
- Narrated by: Greta Jung, Earl T. Kim
- Length: 4 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 37
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 34
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 33
In a classroom in Seoul, a young woman watches her Greek language teacher at the blackboard. She tries to speak but has lost her voice. Her teacher finds himself drawn to the silent woman, for day by day he is losing his sight. Soon the two discover a deeper pain binds them together. For her, in the space of just a few months, she has lost both her mother and the custody battle for her nine-year-old son. For him, it's the pain of growing up between Korea and Germany, being torn between two cultures and languages, and the fear of losing his independence.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Deeply rewarding
- By Pedro on 04-07-25
By: Han Kang, and others
-
Going Home
- A Novel
- By: Tom Lamont
- Narrated by: Jot Davies
- Length: 10 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 17
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 15
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 15
Going Home is a sparkling, funny, bighearted story of family and what happens when three men—all of whom are completely ill-suited for fatherhood—take charge of a toddler following an unexpected loss.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Great Story
- By E G Neufeld on 03-12-25
By: Tom Lamont
I love that the book examines relationships without creating a kind of fishbowl effect. The world goes on around the relationships, and in some way they seem vastly significant, and in some way not at all. This is what I’m always hoping for in literature, and it’s been missing from a lot of the recent “dissection”books. It reminds me of Jenny Offill’s work.
Wonderful
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Young woman’s perspective, not for me
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.