Sinking the Sultana
A Civil War Story of Imprisonment, Greed, and a Doomed Journey Home
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Sinking the Sultana
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Narrated by:
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Janet Metzger
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By:
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Sally M. Walker
About this listen
The worst maritime disaster in American history wasn't the Titanic. It was the steamboat Sultana on the Mississippi River - and it was completely preventable.
In 1865, the Civil War was winding down and the country was reeling from Lincoln's assassination. Thousands of Union soldiers, released from Confederate prisoner-of-war camps, were to be transported home on the steamboat Sultana. With a profit to be made, the captain rushed repairs to the ship so the soldiers wouldn't find transportation elsewhere. More than 2,000 passengers boarded in Vicksburg, Mississippi...on a boat with a capacity of 376. The journey was violently interrupted when the ship's boilers exploded, plunging the Sultana into mayhem; passengers were bombarded with red-hot iron fragments, burned by scalding steam, and flung overboard into the churning Mississippi. Although rescue efforts were launched, the survival rate was dismal - more than 1,500 lives were lost. In a compelling, exhaustively researched account, renowned author Sally M. Walker joins the ranks of historians who have been asking the same question for 150 years: who (or what) was responsible for the Sultana's disastrous fate?
©2017 Sally M. Walker, original book published by Candlewick Press (P)2017 Brilliance Publishing, Inc., all rights reservedListeners also enjoyed...
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 280
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 255
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 252
From the author of The Ghost Ships of Archangel, one of the last unheralded heroic stories of World War II: The U-boat assault off the American coast against the men of the US Merchant Marine who were supplying the European war, and one community’s monumental contribution to that effort. Mathews County, Virginia, is a remote outpost on the Chesapeake Bay with little to offer except unspoiled scenery - but it sent an unusually large concentration of sea captains to fight in World War II.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Engaging Read Not About Brothers, but Men
- By Gillian on 04-22-16
By: William Geroux
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The Wolf
- How One German Raider Terrorized the Allies in the Most Epic Voyage of WWI
- By: Richard Guilliatt, Peter Hohnen
- Narrated by: Michael Page
- Length: 10 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 98
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 63
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 65
In 1916, a nondescript freighter left Germany carrying 465 submarine mines, 16 torpedoes, eight cannons, 1,400 shells, a seaplane, and 346 men who believed they were embarking on a suicide mission. That ship became known to Allied forces as the Wolf, and by the time it returned to Germany more than a year later, it was home to more than 800 men, women, and children from 25 different nations, including its own crew.
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2 out of 5 stars
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Too little sea action.
- By Joseph on 05-02-12
By: Richard Guilliatt, and others
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First into Nagasaki
- By: George Weller
- Narrated by: Stefan Rudnicki
- Length: 11 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 93
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 41
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 43
On September 6, 1945, less than a month after the atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki, George Weller, a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter, became the first free Westerner to enter the devastated city. Going into the hospitals and consulting the doctors of the bomb's victims, Weller was the first to document its unprecedented long-range medical effects. He also became the first to enter the nearby Allied POW camps, which rivaled those of the Nazis for cruelty and bested them for death count.
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5 out of 5 stars
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First Into Nagasaki
- By Harold on 02-15-07
By: George Weller
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Ship of Ghosts
- The Story of the USS Houston, FDR's Legendary Lost Cruiser, and the Epic Saga of of Her Survivors
- By: James D. Hornfischer
- Narrated by: Mark Cashman
- Length: 17 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 369
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 264
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 260
Renowned as FDR's favorite warship, the cruiser USS Houston was a prize target trapped in the far Pacific after Pearl Harbor. Without hope of reinforcement, her crew faced a superior Japanese force ruthlessly committed to total conquest. But the men of the Houston fought back with dignity, ingenuity, sabotage, willpower, and the undying faith that their country would prevail.
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4 out of 5 stars
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interesting read
- By Laurie on 05-11-07
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No Better Friend
- One Man, One Dog, and Their Incredible Story of Courage and Survival in WWII
- By: Robert Weintraub
- Narrated by: Dan Woren
- Length: 14 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 281
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 254
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 254
Flight technician Frank Williams and Judy, a purebred pointer, met in the most unlikely of places: a World War II internment camp in the Pacific. Judy was a fiercely loyal dog, with a keen sense for who was friend and who was foe, and the pair's relationship deepened throughout their captivity. When the prisoners suffered beatings, Judy would repeatedly risk her life to intervene.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Opinion, No Better Friend
- By Sam Thompson on 07-08-15
By: Robert Weintraub
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When Hitler Took Cocaine and Lenin Lost His Brain
- History's Unknown Chapters
- By: Giles Milton
- Narrated by: Giles Milton
- Length: 4 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 323
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 280
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Story4 out of 5 stars 278
The first installment in Giles Milton's outrageously entertaining series, History's Unknown Chapters: colorful and accessible, intelligent and illuminating, Milton shows his customary historical flair as he delves into the little-known stories from the past. There's the cook aboard the Titanic, who pickled himself with whiskey and survived in the icy seas where most everyone else died. There's the man who survived the atomic bomb in both Hiroshima and Nagasaki. And there's many, many more.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Quite entertaining
- By Gunther on 08-05-16
By: Giles Milton
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Stealing the General
- The Great Locomotive Chase and the First Medal of Honor
- By: Russell S. Bonds
- Narrated by: Bronson Pinchot
- Length: 15 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 556
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 465
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Story4 out of 5 stars 477
On April 12, 1862—one year to the day after Confederate guns opened on Fort Sumter and started the Civil War—a tall, mysterious smuggler and self-appointed Union spy named James J. Andrews and 19 infantry volunteers infiltrated Georgia and stole a steam engine called the General. Racing northward at speeds near 60 miles an hour, cutting telegraph lines, and destroying track along the way, Andrews planned to open East Tennessee to the Union army, cutting off men and materiel from the Confederate forces in Virginia.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Stealing The General
- By Jean on 10-15-11
By: Russell S. Bonds
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Wicked River
- The Mississippi When It Last Ran Wild
- By: Lee Sandlin Jeff
- Narrated by: Jeff McCarthy
- Length: 10 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 134
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 111
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 112
Acclaimed journalist and author Lee Sandlin delivers a riveting glimpse of a dangerous and colorful place in America’s historical landscape - the Mississippi River of the 19th century. Long before it was dredged into a shipping channel or romanticized into myth, the untamed Mississippi - the lifeblood of communities that rose and fell along its banks - spawned a motley array of pirates and dignitaries, visionaries, and thieves.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Worth a listen
- By Robert B. Golson on 12-09-10
By: Lee Sandlin Jeff
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The Last Slave Ship
- The True Story of How Clotilda Was Found, Her Descendants, and an Extraordinary Reckoning
- By: Ben Raines
- Narrated by: Kevin R. Free
- Length: 8 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 210
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 185
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Story5 out of 5 stars 185
Fifty years after the Atlantic slave trade was outlawed, the Clotilda became the last ship in history to bring enslaved Africans to the United States. The ship was scuttled and burned on arrival to hide the wealthy perpetrators to escape prosecution. Despite numerous efforts to find the sunken wreck, Clotilda remained hidden for the next 160 years. But in 2019, journalist Ben Raines made international news when he successfully concluded his obsessive quest through the swamps of Alabama to uncover one of our nation’s most important historical artifacts.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Wow. Just Wow.
- By Pinkhippiechick on 02-11-22
By: Ben Raines
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Ship Ablaze
- The Tragedy of the Steamboat General Slocum
- By: Edward T. O'Donnell
- Narrated by: Joel Richards
- Length: 11 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 51
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 42
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 42
There were few experienced swimmers among over 1,300 Lower East Side residents who boarded the General Slocum on June 15, 1904. It shouldn't have mattered since the steamship was only chartered for a languid excursion from Manhattan to Long Island Sound. But a fire erupted minutes into the trip, forcing hundreds of terrified passengers into the water. By the time the captain found a safe shore for landing, 1,021 had perished. It was New York's deadliest tragedy prior to September 11, 2001.
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5 out of 5 stars
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I love learning the “rest of the story”
- By Mark Mears on 07-17-18
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Dead Wake
- The Last Crossing of the Lusitania
- By: Erik Larson
- Narrated by: Scott Brick
- Length: 13 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 14,016
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 12,448
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 12,425
On May 1, 1915, with WWI entering its tenth month, a luxury ocean liner as richly appointed as an English country house sailed out of New York, bound for Liverpool, carrying a record number of children and infants. The passengers were surprisingly at ease, even though Germany had declared the seas around Britain to be a war zone. For months, German U-boats had brought terror to the North Atlantic.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Naivety VS Barbarians Of War
- By Sara on 03-05-16
By: Erik Larson
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Iron Dawn
- The Monitor, the Merrimack, and the Civil War Sea Battle That Changed History
- By: Richard Snow
- Narrated by: Grover Gardner
- Length: 12 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 446
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 389
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 389
No single sea battle has had more far-reaching consequences than the one fought in the harbor at Hampton Roads, Virginia, in March 1862. The Confederacy, with no fleet of its own, built an iron fort containing 10 heavy guns on the hull of a captured Union frigate named the Merrimack. The North got word of the project when it was already well along, and, in desperation, commissioned an eccentric inventor named John Ericsson to build the Monitor, an entirely revolutionary iron warship.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Good book about an underreported area of the civil war
- By Brian on 11-09-16
By: Richard Snow
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In Harm's Way
- The Sinking of the U.S.S. Indianapolis and the Extraordinary Story of Its Survivors
- By: Doug Stanton
- Narrated by: Mark Boyett
- Length: 8 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 6,193
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 5,656
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Story5 out of 5 stars 5,641
On July 30, 1945, the USS Indianapolis was torpedoed in the South Pacific by a Japanese submarine. An estimated 300 men were killed upon impact; close to 900 sailors were cast into the Pacific Ocean, where they remained undetected by the navy for nearly four days and nights. Battered by a savage sea, they struggled to stay alive, fighting off sharks, hypothermia, and dementia. By the time rescue arrived, all but 317 men had died. The captain's subsequent court-martial left many questions unanswered
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5 out of 5 stars
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Captivating
- By Clarence Sparks on 10-22-16
By: Doug Stanton
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Dark Tide
- The Great Boston Molasses Flood of 1919
- By: Stephen Puleo
- Narrated by: Grover Gardner
- Length: 9 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 376
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 327
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 327
Around noon on January 15, 1919, a group of firefighters were playing cards in Boston's North End when they heard a tremendous crash. It was like, "a roaring surf," one of them said later. Like, "a runaway two-horse team smashing through a fence," said another. A third firefighter jumped up from his chair to look out a window - "Oh my God!" he shouted to the other men, "Run!" A 50-foot-tall steel tank filled with 2.3 million gallons of molasses had just collapsed on Boston's waterfront, disgorging its contents as a 15-foot-high wave of molasses that at its outset traveled at 35 miles an hour.
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3 out of 5 stars
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INTERESTING STORY - ABOUT 2x TOO LONG
- By The Louligan on 09-07-14
By: Stephen Puleo
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As Good as Dead
- The Daring Escape of American POWs from a Japanese Death Camp
- By: Stephen L. Moore
- Narrated by: Tim Campbell
- Length: 9 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 89
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 74
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Story5 out of 5 stars 73
In late 1944 the Allies invaded the Japanese-held Philippines, and soon the end of the Pacific War was within reach. But for the last 150 American prisoners of war still held on the island of Palawan, there would be no salvation. As soldiers, sailors, and marines were herded into shallow air raid shelters, Japanese soldiers doused them with gasoline and set them on fire. By the next morning, only 11 men were left alive - but their desperate journey to freedom had just begun.
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5 out of 5 stars
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A question of compassion.
- By Art Baskel on 04-07-17
By: Stephen L. Moore
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Brilliant Beacons
- A History of the American Lighthouse
- By: Eric Jay Dolin
- Narrated by: Tom Perkins
- Length: 14 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 44
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 42
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 42
Set against the backdrop of an expanding nation, Brilliant Beacons traces the evolution of America's lighthouse system, highlighting the political, military, and technological battles fought to illuminate the nation's hardscrabble coastlines.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Great book about Lighthouses
- By Anastasia on 04-25-21
By: Eric Jay Dolin
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Strange and Obscure Stories of the Civil War
- By: Tim Rowland
- Narrated by: Fred Sanders
- Length: 5 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 87
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 77
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Story4 out of 5 stars 77
Strange and Obscure Stories of the Civil War is an entertaining look at the Civil War stories that don’t get told, and the misadventures you haven’t read about in history books. Share in all the humorous and strange events that took place behind the scenes of some of the most famous Civil War moments.
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4 out of 5 stars
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INTERESTING & FUNNY
- By The Louligan on 08-01-14
By: Tim Rowland