Stream System
The Collected Short Fiction of Gerald Murnane
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.
Stream System
Buy for $34.94
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
-
Narrated by:
-
Andrew Martin
-
By:
-
Gerald Murnane
About this listen
Stories from a mind-bending Australian master, “a genius on the level of Beckett” (Teju Cole)
Never before available to listeners in this hemisphere, these stories - originally published from 1985 to 2012 - offer an irresistible compendium of the work of one of contemporary fiction’s greatest magicians.
While the Australian master Gerald Murnane’s reputation rests largely on his longer works of fiction, his short stories stand among the most brilliant and idiosyncratic uses of the form since Borges, Beckett, and Nabokov. Brutal, comic, obscene, and crystalline, Stream System runs from the haunting “Land Deal”, which imagines the colonization of Australia and the ultimate vengeance of its indigenous people as a series of nested dreams to “Finger Web”, which tells a quietly terrifying, fractal tale of the scars of war and the roots of misogyny to “The Interior of Gaaldine”, which finds its anxious protagonist stranded beyond the limits of fiction itself.
No one else crafts like Murnane, and there are few other authors alive still capable of changing how - and why - we enjoy stories.
©2018 Gerald Murnane (P)2019 Audible, Inc.Listeners also enjoyed...
-
Border Districts
- A Fiction
- By: Gerald Murnane
- Narrated by: Andrew Martin
- Length: 4 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 13
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 10
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 10
A man moves from a capital city to a remote town in the border country, where he intends to spend the last years of his life. It is time, he thinks, to review the spoils of a lifetime of seeing, a lifetime of reading. Which sights, which people, which books, fictional characters, turns of phrase, and lines of verse will survive into the twilight? Feeling an increasing urgency to put his mental landscape in order, the man sets to work cataloging this treasure, little knowing where his “report” will lead and what secrets will be brought to light.
By: Gerald Murnane
-
The Man Without Qualities
- By: Robert Musil
- Narrated by: John Telfer
- Length: 60 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 52
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 42
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 43
In 1913, the Viennese aristocracy is gathering to celebrate the 17th jubilee of the accession of Emperor Franz Josef, even as the Austro-Hungarian Empire is collapsing and the rest of Vienna is showing signs of rebellion. At the centre of this social labyrinth is Ulrich: a veteran, a seducer and a scientist, yet also a man 'without qualities' and therefore a brilliant and detached observer of his changing world.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
An unmatched intellectual epic
- By Delano on 06-23-22
By: Robert Musil
-
Europe Central
- By: William T. Vollmann
- Narrated by: Ralph Cosham
- Length: 31 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 109
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 87
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 87
Assembling a composite portrait of these two warring leviathans and the terrible age they defined, the narrative intertwines experiences both real and fictional: a young German who joins the SS to expose its crimes, two generals who collaborate with the enemy for different reasons, the Soviet composer Dmitri Shostakovich laboring under Stalinist oppression.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
A Must Listen
- By Armen on 03-15-09
-
Every Man for Himself and God Against All
- A Memoir
- By: Werner Herzog, Michael Hofmann - translator
- Narrated by: Werner Herzog
- Length: 13 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall5 out of 5 stars 292
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 270
-
Story5 out of 5 stars 270
Werner Herzog was born in September 1942 in Munich, Germany, at a turning point in the Second World War. Soon Germany would be defeated and a new world would have to be made out the rubble and horrors of the war. Fleeing the Allied bombing raids, Herzog’s mother took him and his older brother to a remote, rustic part of Bavaria where he would spend much of his childhood hungry, without running water, in deep poverty. It was there, as the new postwar order was emerging, that one of the most visionary filmmakers of the next seven decades was formed.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Absolutely incredible, memoir of the year
- By Susie Bright on 10-16-23
By: Werner Herzog, and others
-
Collected Fictions
- By: Jorge Luis Borges, Andrew Hurley - translator
- Narrated by: George Guidall
- Length: 5 hrs and 14 mins
- Abridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 564
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 464
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 466
From his 1935 debut with "The Universal History of Iniquity", through his immensely influential collections Ficciones and The Aleph, these enigmatic, elaborate, imaginative inventions display Borges' talent for turning fiction on its head by playing with form and genre and toying with language.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
Good but incomplete
- By Aaron on 12-17-18
By: Jorge Luis Borges, and others
-
The Netanyahus
- An Account of a Minor and Ultimately Even Negligible Episode in the History of a Very Famous Family
- By: Joshua Cohen
- Narrated by: Joshua Cohen, David Duchovny, Ethan Herschenfeld
- Length: 8 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 739
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 649
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 643
Corbin College, not quite upstate New York, winter 1959-1960: Ruben Blum, a Jewish historian—but not an historian of the Jews—is co-opted onto a hiring committee to review the application of an exiled Israeli scholar specializing in the Spanish Inquisition. When Benzion Netanyahu shows up for an interview, family unexpectedly in tow, Blum plays the reluctant host to guests who proceed to lay waste to his American complacencies. Mixing fiction with nonfiction, the campus novel with the lecture, The Netanyahus is a wildly inventive comedy of blending, identity, and politics.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Phillip Roth would certainly listen!
- By Martin on 01-17-22
By: Joshua Cohen
-
Border Districts
- A Fiction
- By: Gerald Murnane
- Narrated by: Andrew Martin
- Length: 4 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 13
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 10
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 10
A man moves from a capital city to a remote town in the border country, where he intends to spend the last years of his life. It is time, he thinks, to review the spoils of a lifetime of seeing, a lifetime of reading. Which sights, which people, which books, fictional characters, turns of phrase, and lines of verse will survive into the twilight? Feeling an increasing urgency to put his mental landscape in order, the man sets to work cataloging this treasure, little knowing where his “report” will lead and what secrets will be brought to light.
By: Gerald Murnane
-
The Man Without Qualities
- By: Robert Musil
- Narrated by: John Telfer
- Length: 60 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 52
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 42
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 43
In 1913, the Viennese aristocracy is gathering to celebrate the 17th jubilee of the accession of Emperor Franz Josef, even as the Austro-Hungarian Empire is collapsing and the rest of Vienna is showing signs of rebellion. At the centre of this social labyrinth is Ulrich: a veteran, a seducer and a scientist, yet also a man 'without qualities' and therefore a brilliant and detached observer of his changing world.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
An unmatched intellectual epic
- By Delano on 06-23-22
By: Robert Musil
-
Europe Central
- By: William T. Vollmann
- Narrated by: Ralph Cosham
- Length: 31 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 109
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 87
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 87
Assembling a composite portrait of these two warring leviathans and the terrible age they defined, the narrative intertwines experiences both real and fictional: a young German who joins the SS to expose its crimes, two generals who collaborate with the enemy for different reasons, the Soviet composer Dmitri Shostakovich laboring under Stalinist oppression.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
A Must Listen
- By Armen on 03-15-09
-
Every Man for Himself and God Against All
- A Memoir
- By: Werner Herzog, Michael Hofmann - translator
- Narrated by: Werner Herzog
- Length: 13 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall5 out of 5 stars 292
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 270
-
Story5 out of 5 stars 270
Werner Herzog was born in September 1942 in Munich, Germany, at a turning point in the Second World War. Soon Germany would be defeated and a new world would have to be made out the rubble and horrors of the war. Fleeing the Allied bombing raids, Herzog’s mother took him and his older brother to a remote, rustic part of Bavaria where he would spend much of his childhood hungry, without running water, in deep poverty. It was there, as the new postwar order was emerging, that one of the most visionary filmmakers of the next seven decades was formed.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Absolutely incredible, memoir of the year
- By Susie Bright on 10-16-23
By: Werner Herzog, and others
-
Collected Fictions
- By: Jorge Luis Borges, Andrew Hurley - translator
- Narrated by: George Guidall
- Length: 5 hrs and 14 mins
- Abridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 564
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 464
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 466
From his 1935 debut with "The Universal History of Iniquity", through his immensely influential collections Ficciones and The Aleph, these enigmatic, elaborate, imaginative inventions display Borges' talent for turning fiction on its head by playing with form and genre and toying with language.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
Good but incomplete
- By Aaron on 12-17-18
By: Jorge Luis Borges, and others
-
The Netanyahus
- An Account of a Minor and Ultimately Even Negligible Episode in the History of a Very Famous Family
- By: Joshua Cohen
- Narrated by: Joshua Cohen, David Duchovny, Ethan Herschenfeld
- Length: 8 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 739
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 649
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 643
Corbin College, not quite upstate New York, winter 1959-1960: Ruben Blum, a Jewish historian—but not an historian of the Jews—is co-opted onto a hiring committee to review the application of an exiled Israeli scholar specializing in the Spanish Inquisition. When Benzion Netanyahu shows up for an interview, family unexpectedly in tow, Blum plays the reluctant host to guests who proceed to lay waste to his American complacencies. Mixing fiction with nonfiction, the campus novel with the lecture, The Netanyahus is a wildly inventive comedy of blending, identity, and politics.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Phillip Roth would certainly listen!
- By Martin on 01-17-22
By: Joshua Cohen
-
October
- The Story of the Russian Revolution
- By: China Mieville
- Narrated by: John Banks
- Length: 11 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 700
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 609
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 609
The renowned fantasy and science fiction writer China Mieville has long been inspired by the ideals of the Russian Revolution, and here, on the centenary of the revolution, he provides his own distinctive take on its history. In February 1917, in the midst of bloody war, Russia was still an autocratic monarchy: nine months later it became the first socialist state in world history. How did this unimaginable transformation take place? How was a ravaged and backward country, swept up in a desperately unpopular war, rocked by not one but two revolutions?
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
The 20th Century's New Weird History
- By Darwin8u on 08-12-17
By: China Mieville
-
The Life of Samuel Johnson
- By: James Boswell
- Narrated by: David Timson
- Length: 51 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 143
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 130
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 125
Charming, vibrant, witty and edifying, The Life of Samuel Johnson is a work of great obsession and boundless reverence. The literary critic Samuel Johnson was 54 when he first encountered Boswell; the friendship that developed spawned one of the greatest biographies in the history of world literature. The book is full of humorous anecdote and rich characterization, and paints a vivid picture of 18th-century London, peopled by prominent personalities of the time.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Wonderful!
- By Tad Davis on 02-02-18
By: James Boswell
-
The Years
- By: Annie Ernaux
- Narrated by: Anna Bentinck
- Length: 8 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 212
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 185
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 186
The Years is a personal narrative of the period of 1941 to 2006 told through the lens of memory, impressions past and present - even projections into the future - photos, books, songs, radio, television, and decades of advertising and headlines, contrasted with intimate conflicts and written notes from six decades of diaries. Local dialect, words of the time, slogans, brands, and names for ever-proliferating objects are given a voice here. The voice we recognize as the author's continually dissolves and re-emerges.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
Mixed Feelings
- By Elin VanD on 05-10-20
By: Annie Ernaux
-
2666
- By: Roberto Bolaño
- Narrated by: John Lee, Armando Durán, G. Valmont Thomas, and others
- Length: 39 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 1,096
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 831
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 838
Composed in the last years of Roberto Bolaño's life, 2666 was greeted across Europe and Latin America as his highest achievement, surpassing even his previous work in its strangeness, beauty, and scope. Its throng of unforgettable characters includes academics and convicts, an American sportswriter, an elusive German novelist, and a teenage student and her widowed, mentally unstable father. Their lives intersect in the urban sprawl of Santa Teresa - a fictional Juárez - on the U.S.-Mexico border.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
The Best Book I Read or Listened to in 2009
- By William on 01-05-10
By: Roberto Bolaño
-
William Blake vs the World
- By: John Higgs
- Narrated by: John Higgs
- Length: 11 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall5 out of 5 stars 97
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 83
-
Story5 out of 5 stars 83
A wild and unexpected journey through culture, science, philosophy, and religion to better understand the mercurial genius of William Blake.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Best book ever
- By idamae on 11-04-22
By: John Higgs
-
Nazi Literature in the Americas
- By: Roberto Bolaño, Chris Andrews - translator
- Narrated by: Jonathan Davis
- Length: 6 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 72
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 61
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 60
A tour de force of black humor and imaginary erudition, Nazi Literature in the Americas presents itself as a biographical dictionary of writers who espoused extreme right-wing ideologies in the 20th and 21st centuries.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Eerie and fascinating
- By Jikai Zenshin on 03-19-21
By: Roberto Bolaño, and others
-
The Books of Jacob
- A Novel
- By: Olga Tokarczuk, Jennifer Croft - translator
- Narrated by: Allen Lewis Rickman, Gilli Messer
- Length: 35 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 256
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 208
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 209
In the mid-18th century, as new ideas—and a new unrest—begin to sweep the Continent, a young Jew of mysterious origins arrives in a village in Poland. Before long, he has changed not only his name but his persona; visited by what seem to be ecstatic experiences, Jacob Frank casts a charismatic spell that attracts an increasingly fervent following.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
Dense & Difficult But Rewarding
- By Nick O. on 02-28-22
By: Olga Tokarczuk, and others
-
Carpenter's Gothic
- By: William Gaddis
- Narrated by: Nick Sullivan
- Length: 9 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 33
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 29
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 29
This story of raging comedy and despair centers on the tempestuous marriage of an heiress and a Vietnam veteran. From their "carpenter Gothic" rented house, Paul sets himself up as a media consultant for Reverend Ude, an evangelist mounting a grand crusade that conveniently suits a mining combine bidding to take over an ore strike on the site of Ude's African mission.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
the dialogue is superb
- By Monti Korbelle on 07-01-19
By: William Gaddis
-
How It Is
- By: Samuel Beckett
- Narrated by: Dermot Crowley
- Length: 5 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall5 out of 5 stars 22
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 18
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 18
How It Is, a landmark in 20th century literature, is one of the most challenging of Samuel Beckett's early novels. He published it first in French in 1961 and then in his own translation in 1964. He explained in a letter that it was the outpouring of a "'man' lying panting in the mud and dark murmuring his 'life' as he hears it obscurely uttered by a voice inside him.... The noise of his panting fills his ears and it is only when this abates that he can catch and murmur forth a fragment of what is being stated within...."
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Amazing performance
- By Jaime Rodriguez on 08-22-17
By: Samuel Beckett
-
Nostromo
- By: Joseph Conrad
- Narrated by: Nigel Anthony
- Length: 18 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 71
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 62
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 61
Set in the fictional South American country of Costaguana, Nostromo explores the volatile politics and crippling greed surrounding the San Tomé silver mine. The story of power, love, revolutions, loyalty and reward is told with richly evocative description and brilliantly realised characters. But Nostromo is more than an adventure story; it is also a profoundly dark moral fable. Its language is as compellingly resonant as the sea itself; the characters absorbing and complex.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
If literature was food, this would be 12 courses
- By Dan Harlow on 07-07-13
By: Joseph Conrad
-
Warlight
- A Novel
- By: Michael Ondaatje
- Narrated by: Steve West
- Length: 8 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 1,918
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 1,723
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 1,720
In a narrative as beguiling and mysterious as memory itself - shadowed and luminous at once - we follow the story of 14-year-old Nathaniel, and his older sister, Rachel. In 1945, just after World War II, they stay behind in London when their parents move to Singapore, leaving them in the care of a mysterious figure named The Moth. They suspect he might be a criminal, and they grow both more convinced and less concerned as they come to know his eccentric crew of friends: men and women joined by a shared history of unspecified service during the war.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
It both entertains and teaches.
- By Kelly on 07-28-18
By: Michael Ondaatje
-
When We Cease to Understand the World
- By: Benjamin Labatut, Adrian West - translator
- Narrated by: Adam Barr
- Length: 5 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 833
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 686
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 680
When We Cease to Understand the World is a book about the complicated links between scientific and mathematical discovery, madness, and destruction. Fritz Haber, Alexander Grothendieck, Werner Heisenberg, Erwin Schrödinger - these are some of the luminaries into whose troubled lives Benjamín Labatut thrusts the listener, showing us how they grappled with the most profound questions of existence.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
the true heir w.g. sebald
- By Thomas on 12-23-21
By: Benjamin Labatut, and others
Related to this topic
-
The Possessed
- Adventures with Russian Books and the People Who Read Them
- By: Elif Batuman
- Narrated by: Elif Batuman
- Length: 9 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 72
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 58
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 59
In The Possessed we watch Elif Batuman investigate a possible murder at Tolstoy's ancestral estate. We go with her to Stanford, Switzerland, and St. Petersburg; retrace Pushkin's wanderings in the Caucasus; learn why Old Uzbek has 100 different words for crying; and see an 18th-century ice palace reconstructed on the Neva. Love and the novel, the individual in history, the existential plight of the graduate student: all find their places in The Possessed.
-
3 out of 5 stars
-
Dear Russian Literary Diary...
- By Darwin8u on 08-29-17
By: Elif Batuman
-
The Cut Out Girl
- A Story of War and Family, Lost and Found
- By: Bart van Es
- Narrated by: Bart van Es
- Length: 8 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 67
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 60
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 60
Bart van Es left Holland for England many years ago, but one story from his Dutch childhood never left him. It was a mystery of sorts: A young Jewish girl named Lientje had been taken in during the war by relatives and hidden from the Nazis, handed over by her parents. The girl had been raised by her foster family as one of their own, but then, well after the war, they were no longer in touch. What was the girl's side of the story, Bart wondered? What really happened during the war and after? So began an investigation that would consume Bart van Es's life and change it.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
a powerful & unique work on the Holocaust
- By D. Littman on 03-06-19
By: Bart van Es
-
The Lost
- A Search for Six of Six Million
- By: Daniel Mendelsohn
- Narrated by: Bronson Pinchot
- Length: 22 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 183
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 167
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 164
The Lost begins as the story of a boy who grew up in a family haunted by the disappearance of six relatives during the Holocaust - an unmentionable subject that gripped his imagination from earliest childhood. Decades later, spurred by the discovery of a cache of desperate letters written to his grandfather in 1939 and tantalized by fragmentary tales of a terrible betrayal, Daniel Mendelsohn sets out to find the remaining eyewitnesses to his relatives' fates.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Exquisite Narration, Breathtakingly Heartfelt Book
- By Gillian on 08-14-16
-
Nine Continents
- A Memoir In and Out of China
- By: Xiaolu Guo
- Narrated by: Emily Woo Zeller
- Length: 11 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 39
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 32
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 33
Xiaolu Guo has traveled further than most to become who she needed to be. Now, as she experiences the birth of her daughter in a London maternity ward surrounded by women from all over the world, she looks back on that journey. It begins in the fishing village shack on the East China Sea where her illiterate grandparents raised her, and brings her to a rapidly changing Beijing, full of contradictions: a thriving underground art scene amid mass censorship, curious Westerners who held out affection only to disappear back home.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
must read
- By Jeff Darlington on 10-22-17
By: Xiaolu Guo
-
Last Evenings on Earth
- By: Roberto Bolano, Chris Andrews - translator
- Narrated by: David Crommett
- Length: 7 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 38
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 31
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 31
The first short-story collection in English by the acclaimed Chilean author Roberto Bolano. Winner of a 2005 PEN Translation Fund Award. "The melancholy folklore of exile", as Roberto Bolano once put it, pervades these 14 haunting stories. Bolano's narrators are usually writers grappling with private (and generally unlucky) quests, who typically speak in the first person, as if giving a deposition, like witnesses to a crime.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
Solid Character based Stories
- By Michael on 06-06-24
By: Roberto Bolano, and others
-
Ted Hughes
- The Unauthorized Life
- By: Jonathan Bate
- Narrated by: Mike Grady
- Length: 25 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 35
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 33
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 33
Ted Hughes, poet laureate, was one of the greatest writers of the 20th century. With an equal gift for poetry and prose, and with a soul as capacious as any poet in history, he was also a prolific children's writer and has been hailed as the greatest English letter writer since John Keats. His magnetic personality and insatiable appetite for friendship, love, and life also attracted more scandal than any poet since Lord Byron.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Phenomenal thanks to narrator!
- By equinox14 on 06-26-16
By: Jonathan Bate
-
The Possessed
- Adventures with Russian Books and the People Who Read Them
- By: Elif Batuman
- Narrated by: Elif Batuman
- Length: 9 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 72
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 58
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 59
In The Possessed we watch Elif Batuman investigate a possible murder at Tolstoy's ancestral estate. We go with her to Stanford, Switzerland, and St. Petersburg; retrace Pushkin's wanderings in the Caucasus; learn why Old Uzbek has 100 different words for crying; and see an 18th-century ice palace reconstructed on the Neva. Love and the novel, the individual in history, the existential plight of the graduate student: all find their places in The Possessed.
-
3 out of 5 stars
-
Dear Russian Literary Diary...
- By Darwin8u on 08-29-17
By: Elif Batuman
-
The Cut Out Girl
- A Story of War and Family, Lost and Found
- By: Bart van Es
- Narrated by: Bart van Es
- Length: 8 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 67
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 60
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 60
Bart van Es left Holland for England many years ago, but one story from his Dutch childhood never left him. It was a mystery of sorts: A young Jewish girl named Lientje had been taken in during the war by relatives and hidden from the Nazis, handed over by her parents. The girl had been raised by her foster family as one of their own, but then, well after the war, they were no longer in touch. What was the girl's side of the story, Bart wondered? What really happened during the war and after? So began an investigation that would consume Bart van Es's life and change it.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
a powerful & unique work on the Holocaust
- By D. Littman on 03-06-19
By: Bart van Es
-
The Lost
- A Search for Six of Six Million
- By: Daniel Mendelsohn
- Narrated by: Bronson Pinchot
- Length: 22 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 183
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 167
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 164
The Lost begins as the story of a boy who grew up in a family haunted by the disappearance of six relatives during the Holocaust - an unmentionable subject that gripped his imagination from earliest childhood. Decades later, spurred by the discovery of a cache of desperate letters written to his grandfather in 1939 and tantalized by fragmentary tales of a terrible betrayal, Daniel Mendelsohn sets out to find the remaining eyewitnesses to his relatives' fates.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Exquisite Narration, Breathtakingly Heartfelt Book
- By Gillian on 08-14-16
-
Nine Continents
- A Memoir In and Out of China
- By: Xiaolu Guo
- Narrated by: Emily Woo Zeller
- Length: 11 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 39
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 32
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 33
Xiaolu Guo has traveled further than most to become who she needed to be. Now, as she experiences the birth of her daughter in a London maternity ward surrounded by women from all over the world, she looks back on that journey. It begins in the fishing village shack on the East China Sea where her illiterate grandparents raised her, and brings her to a rapidly changing Beijing, full of contradictions: a thriving underground art scene amid mass censorship, curious Westerners who held out affection only to disappear back home.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
must read
- By Jeff Darlington on 10-22-17
By: Xiaolu Guo
-
Last Evenings on Earth
- By: Roberto Bolano, Chris Andrews - translator
- Narrated by: David Crommett
- Length: 7 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 38
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 31
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 31
The first short-story collection in English by the acclaimed Chilean author Roberto Bolano. Winner of a 2005 PEN Translation Fund Award. "The melancholy folklore of exile", as Roberto Bolano once put it, pervades these 14 haunting stories. Bolano's narrators are usually writers grappling with private (and generally unlucky) quests, who typically speak in the first person, as if giving a deposition, like witnesses to a crime.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
Solid Character based Stories
- By Michael on 06-06-24
By: Roberto Bolano, and others
-
Ted Hughes
- The Unauthorized Life
- By: Jonathan Bate
- Narrated by: Mike Grady
- Length: 25 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 35
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 33
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 33
Ted Hughes, poet laureate, was one of the greatest writers of the 20th century. With an equal gift for poetry and prose, and with a soul as capacious as any poet in history, he was also a prolific children's writer and has been hailed as the greatest English letter writer since John Keats. His magnetic personality and insatiable appetite for friendship, love, and life also attracted more scandal than any poet since Lord Byron.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Phenomenal thanks to narrator!
- By equinox14 on 06-26-16
By: Jonathan Bate
-
Clara Callan
- By: Richard B. Wright
- Narrated by: Anne Twomey, Joanna P. Adler
- Length: 8 hrs and 43 mins
- Abridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 96
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 26
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 24
Two sisters, small-town Ontario, 1934. Canadian author Richard Wright tells their story, from the ordinary to the extraoridinary with an eye for the commonplace and poignant sense of the larger undercurrents that change people's lives.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
charming intimate refreshing
- By L on 09-10-04
-
Distant Star
- By: Roberto Bolano
- Narrated by: Walter Krochmal
- Length: 4 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 61
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 52
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 53
A chilling novel about the nightmare of a corrupt and brutal dictatorship. The star of Roberto Bolano's hair-raising novel Distant Star is Alberto Ruiz-Tagle, an air force pilot who exploits the 1973 coup to launch his own version of the New Chilean Poetry, a multimedia enterprise involving sky-writing, poetry, torture, and photo exhibitions. For our unnamed narrator, who first encounters this "star" in a college poetry workshop, Ruiz-Tagle becomes the silent hand behind every evil act in the darkness of Pinochet's regime.
-
3 out of 5 stars
-
Omg
- By Sierra on 08-03-16
By: Roberto Bolano
-
Flesh Wounds
- By: Richard Glover
- Narrated by: Richard Glover
- Length: 7 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 35
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 34
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 34
A mother who invented her past, a father who was often absent, a son who wondered if this could really be his family...Richard Glover's favourite dinner-party game is called 'Who's Got the Weirdest Parents?' It's a game he always thinks he'll win. There was his mother, a deluded snob who made up large swathes of her past and who ran away with Richard's English teacher, a Tolkien devotee, nudist and stuffed toy collector.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Such a Meaningful Reflection
- By Awarenessing on 11-28-15
By: Richard Glover
-
Time Pieces
- A Dublin Memoir
- By: John Banville
- Narrated by: John Lee
- Length: 4 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 31
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 26
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 26
As much about the life of the city as it is about a life lived, sometimes, in the city, John Banville's "quasi-memoir" is as layered, emotionally rich, witty, and unexpected as any of his novels. Born and bred in a small town a train ride away from Dublin, Banville saw the city as a place of enchantment when he was a child, a birthday treat, the place where his beloved, eccentric aunt lived.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
‘loved it!
- By SandyK on 02-24-24
By: John Banville
-
In the Great Green Room
- The Brilliant and Bold Life of Margaret Wise Brown
- By: Amy Gary
- Narrated by: Bernadette Dunne
- Length: 7 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 79
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 66
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 65
The extraordinary life of the woman behind the beloved children's classics Goodnight Moon and The Runaway Bunny comes alive in this fascinating biography of Margaret Wise Brown. Margaret's books have sold millions of copies all over the world, but few people know that she was at the center of a children's book publishing revolution.
-
1 out of 5 stars
-
Excruciatingly boring
- By Melissa S. on 01-31-19
By: Amy Gary
-
The Night Ocean
- By: Paul La Farge
- Narrated by: Elisabeth Rodgers
- Length: 13 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall3.5 out of 5 stars 126
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 118
-
Story3.5 out of 5 stars 117
Marina Willett, MD, has a problem. Her husband, Charlie, has become obsessed with H. P. Lovecraft, in particular with one episode in the legendary horror writer's life: In the summer of 1934, the "old gent" lived for two months with a gay teenage fan named Robert Barlow, at Barlow's family home in central Florida. What were the two of them up to? Were they friends - or something more? Just when Charlie thinks he's solved the puzzle, a new scandal erupts, and he disappears.
-
2 out of 5 stars
-
Frustratingly Uneven Due to Clumsy Plot Structure
- By Adam on 06-15-17
By: Paul La Farge
-
Istanbul
- Memories and the City
- By: Orhan Pamuk
- Narrated by: John Lee
- Length: 9 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 215
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 179
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 183
A shimmering evocation, by turns intimate and panoramic, of one of the world’s great cities, by its foremost writer. Orhan Pamuk was born in Istanbul and still lives in the family apartment building where his mother first held him in her arms. His portrait of his city is thus also a self-portrait, refracted by memory and the melancholy—or hüzün—that all Istanbullus share.
-
3 out of 5 stars
-
Terrible pronunciation
- By K. Jaynes on 02-25-18
By: Orhan Pamuk
-
Finding George Orwell in Burma
- By: Emma Larkin
- Narrated by: Emily Durante
- Length: 8 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 71
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 49
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 49
Over the years the American writer Emma Larkin has spent traveling in Burma, she has come to know all too well the many ways this police state can be described as "Orwellian". The life of the mind exists in a state of siege in Burma, and it long has. The connection between George Orwell and Burma is not simply metaphorical, of course; Orwell's mother was born in Burma, and he was shaped by his experiences there as a young man working for the British Imperial Police.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
Orwell's Horrors Brought to Life
- By Roger on 09-21-10
By: Emma Larkin
-
The Dark Flood Rises
- A Novel
- By: Dame Margaret Drabble
- Narrated by: Anna Bentinck
- Length: 13 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 136
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 124
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 125
Francesca Stubbs has a very full life. A highly regarded expert on housing for the elderly who is herself getting on in age, she drives restlessly round England. Amid the professional conferences she attends, she fits in visits to old friends, brings home-cooked dinners to her ex-husband, texts her son, who is grieving over the sudden death of his girlfriend, and drops in on her daughter, a quirky young woman who lives in a floodplain in the West Country.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Life Observed By An Exceptional Writer
- By Sara on 03-22-17
-
The Return
- Fathers, Sons and the Land in Between
- By: Hisham Matar
- Narrated by: Hisham Matar
- Length: 8 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 998
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 888
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 889
When Hisham Matar was a 19-year-old university student in England, his father was kidnapped. One of the Qaddafi regime's most prominent opponents in exile, he was held in a secret prison in Libya. Hisham would never see him again. But he never gave up hope that his father might still be alive. "Hope," as he writes, "is cunning and persistent." Twenty-two years later, after the fall of Qaddafi, the prison cells were empty, and there was no sign of Jaballa Matar. Hisham returned with his mother and wife to the homeland he never thought he'd go back to again.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
Touching memoir. Consider hard copy
- By Joschka Philipps on 02-22-18
By: Hisham Matar
-
The Flight of Gemma Hardy
- A Novel
- By: Margot Livesey
- Narrated by: Davina Porter
- Length: 14 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 316
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 285
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 281
Fate has not been kind to Gemma Hardy. Orphaned then neglected, young Gemma seemed destined for a life of hardship and loneliness. Yet her bright spirit burns strong. Fiercely intelligent, singularly determined, Gemma overcomes each challenge and setback, growing stronger and more certain of her path. Now an independent young woman, she accepts a position as an au pair on the remote and beautiful Orkney Islands. But Gemma’s biggest trial is about to begin....
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
f you loved Jane Eyre, you will like this novel.
- By Cecilia on 02-09-12
By: Margot Livesey
-
American Ghost
- A Family's Haunted Past in the Desert Southwest
- By: Hannah Nordhaus
- Narrated by: Xe Sands
- Length: 8 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 151
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 130
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 130
The dark-eyed woman in the long, black gown was first seen in the 1970s, standing near a fireplace. She was sad and translucent, present and absent at once. Strange things began to happen in the Santa Fe hotel where she was seen. Gas fireplaces turned off and on without anyone touching a switch. Glasses flew off shelves. And in one second-floor suite with a canopy bed and arched windows looking out to the mountains, guests reported alarming events.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
A true American tale
- By Cleo Colorado on 05-29-15
By: Hannah Nordhaus
What listeners say about Stream System
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall5 out of 5 stars
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars
-
Story5 out of 5 stars
- Jessica Manrique
- 05-27-23
Emerald blue
Expansive grasslands and virgin forests of a soul. Glimpses of beatific reflections in a sacred chalice.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!