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Solstice
- Narrated by: Emily Durante
- Length: 7 hrs and 15 mins
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Solstice
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Publisher's summary
An engrossing early novel from Joyce Carol Oates explores a fraught and perilous relationship between two women.
Originally published in 1985, Solstice is the gripping story of Monica Jensen and Sheila Trask, two young women who are complete opposites yet find themselves irresistibly drawn to each other. Monica is a shy, modest, and recently divorced school teacher while Sheila is a worldly, sophisticated, and nocturnal painter driven by the needs of her art. Over the months, their friendship deepens, first to love and then to a near-fatal obsession.
Engaging, dark, and mysterious, Solstice is Joyce Carol Oates’s psychological masterpiece of friendship and fixation.
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Asylum
- By: Patrick McGrath
- Narrated by: Sir Ian McKellen
- Length: 8 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 2,027
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 1,764
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Story4 out of 5 stars 1,757
In the summer of 1959 Stella Raphael joins her psychiatrist husband, Max, at his new posting - a maximum-security hospital for the criminally insane. Stella soon falls under the spell of Edgar Stark, a brilliant sculptor who has been confined to the hospital for murdering his wife in a psychotic rage. But Stella's knowledge of Edgar's crime is no hindrance to the volcanic attraction that ensues -a passion that will consume Stella's sanity and destroy her and the lives of those around her.
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5 out of 5 stars
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So enjoyed this book!
- By Mebythesea on 10-07-08
By: Patrick McGrath
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The Golden Notebook
- By: Doris Lessing
- Narrated by: Juliet Stevenson
- Length: 27 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 525
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 435
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Story4 out of 5 stars 432
Author Anna Wulf attempts to overcome writer’s block by writing a comprehensive "golden notebook" that draws together the preoccupations of her life, each of which is examined in a different notebook. Anna’s struggle to unify the various strands of her life – emotional, political, and professional – amasses into a fascinating encyclopaedia of female experience in the ‘50s.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Transcendent narration of a masterpiece.
- By @vmarinelli on 07-03-12
By: Doris Lessing
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The Razor's Edge
- By: W. Somerset Maugham
- Narrated by: Michael Page
- Length: 11 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 1,039
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 917
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 908
The Great War changed everything and everyone, and Larry Darrell is no exception. Though his physical wounds from the war heal, his spirit is changed almost beyond recognition. He leaves his betrothed, the beautiful and devoted Isabel; studies philosophy and religion in Paris; lives as a monk, and witnesses the exotic hardships of Spanish life. All of life that he can find - from an Indian Ashrama to labor in a coal mine - becomes Larry's spiritual experiment as he spurns the comfort and privilege of the Roaring 20s.
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4 out of 5 stars
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An Classic of Love and the Desire for Meaning
- By Eric on 01-06-17
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Of Human Bondage
- By: W. Somerset Maugham
- Narrated by: Charlton Griffin
- Length: 28 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 418
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 375
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 371
Of Human Bondage is one of the greatest novels of modern times, and it is certainly Maugham's greatest achievement. It was published in 1914, when Maugham was at the height of his creative powers. The story concerns Philip Carey, afflicted at birth with a club foot, and his passionate search for truth in a cruel world. We follow his growth to manhood, his educational progress, his first loves, and the wrenching tragedies and disappointments that life has in store for him. In some of the finest prose of the 20th century, Maugham has presented us with the timeless story of one man's search for the meaning of life.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Greatly Unsettling
- By Michael on 10-04-14
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Stoner
- By: John Williams
- Narrated by: Robin Field
- Length: 9 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 4,527
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 4,022
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 4,012
William Stoner is born at the end of the 19th century into a dirt-poor Missouri farming family. Sent to the state university to study agronomy, he instead falls in love with English literature and embraces a scholar's life, far different from the hardscrabble existence he has known. And yet as the years pass, Stoner encounters a succession of disappointments.
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5 out of 5 stars
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A story of sadness and serenity
- By Anton on 10-13-12
By: John Williams
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Lolita
- By: Vladimir Nabokov
- Narrated by: Jeremy Irons
- Length: 11 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 11,396
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 9,590
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 9,525
Awe and exhilaration—along with heartbreak and mordant wit—abound in Lolita, which tells the story of the aging Humbert Humbert's obsession for the nymphet Dolores Haze. Lolita is also the story of a hypercivilized European colliding with the cheerful barbarism of postwar America.
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5 out of 5 stars
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An Absolutely Gorgeous Audible Experience
- By Jim on 10-26-05
By: Vladimir Nabokov
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The Museum of Innocence
- By: Orhan Pamuk, Maureen Freely (translator)
- Narrated by: John Lee
- Length: 20 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 326
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 246
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Story4 out of 5 stars 246
Kemal, scion of one of the city's wealthiest families, is about to become engaged to Sibel, daughter of another prominent family, when he encounters Füsun, a beautiful shopgirl and a distant relation. Once the long-lost cousins violate the code of virginity, a rift begins to open between Kemal and the world of the Westernized Istanbul bourgeosie - a world, as he lovingly describes it, with opulent parties and clubs, society gossip, picnics, and mansions on the Bosphorus, infused with the melancholy of decay.
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5 out of 5 stars
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one of the very best I've ever heard
- By Rebecca Lindroos on 03-06-10
By: Orhan Pamuk, and others
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Up a Road Slowly
- By: Irene Hunt
- Narrated by: Jaselyn Blanchard
- Length: 4 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 119
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 111
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 108
Julie would remember her happy days at Aunt Cordelia’s forever. Running through the spacious rooms, singing on rainy nights in front of the blazing fireplace. There were rides in the woods on Peter the Great, the races with Danny Trevort. Maybe best of all were the precious moments alone in her room at night, gazing at the sea of stars. But there was sadness too - the painful jealousy Julie felt after her sister got married, the tragic death of a schoolmate, and the bitter disappointment of her first love. Sometimes it all seemed like too much to handle.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Coming of age in mid century
- By Mary A. Kozy on 01-17-21
By: Irene Hunt
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Herzog
- By: Saul Bellow
- Narrated by: Malcolm Hillgartner
- Length: 15 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 387
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 298
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Story4 out of 5 stars 300
Winner of the National Book Award when it was first published in 1964, Herzog traces five days in the life of a failed academic whose wife has recently left him for his best friend. Through the device of letter writing, Herzog movingly portrays both the internal life of its eponymous hero and the complexity of modern consciousness.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Grows Within You
- By Chris Reich on 08-06-11
By: Saul Bellow
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The Book Club
- By: Mary Alice Monroe
- Narrated by: Deanna Hurst
- Length: 14 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 331
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 282
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Story4 out of 5 stars 285
Discover this moving story of five remarkable friends as Mary Alice Monroe, the New York Times bestselling author of The Beach House, explores the power of friendship with tenderness and honesty.
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1 out of 5 stars
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Beware: Title Is Deceptive !!
- By Fran Foster on 02-07-16
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A Closed Eye
- By: Anita Brookner
- Narrated by: Prunella Scales
- Length: 8 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 46
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 36
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Story4 out of 5 stars 36
Born to elegant but frivolous parents, Harriet grows up ignored and unguided, and retains a curious innocence that neither her marriage to Freddie Lytton, nor her friendship with the beautiful Tessa can dispel. Freddie is far older than she is - a companion rather than a lover - and slightly disapproving of Tessa and her irresponsible, attractive husband, Jack. Yet all four are bound together: by their backgrounds, their children, by Harriet’s unspoken feelings for Jack and by the tragedy that lies in wait for all of them.
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5 out of 5 stars
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The Late Great Ms. Brookner
- By David P on 05-15-16
By: Anita Brookner
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The Woman from Paris
- By: Santa Montefiore
- Narrated by: Tara Ward
- Length: 13 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 92
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 88
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 87
When Lord Frampton dies in a skiing accident, a beautiful young woman named Phaedra appears at his funeral - claiming to be the Lord’s illegitimate daughter. In his will, Lord Frampton has left the priceless Frampton suite of sapphires to this interloper, confirming her claim and outraging his three adult sons and widow. Eventually, however, Phaedra’s sweet nature thaws the frosty relationships. She becomes the daughter that Antoinette Frampton never had and a wise and compassionate granddaughter to the formidable Dowager Lady Frampton.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Worth the time...
- By Esther Cunningham on 09-28-16
By: Santa Montefiore