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The Actual
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Narrated by:
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Robert Fass
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By:
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Saul Bellow
About this listen
Harry Trellman doesn't belong. Not in the Chicago orphanage where he is sent by his mother, not in high school (too brainy), not even on the streets. Human attachments? Yes, he has them, but they are like everything else in his life, singular and irregular. People who know him say that he "drowns his feelings in his face", and that he has a Mongolian "masked look". But though Harry stands apart, he has always been a most keen observer, listener, recorder, and interpreter, and none of this is lost on the Chicago billionaire, Sigmund Adletsky, who takes Harry into his "brain trust". He retains Harry to advise him. They discuss ordinary things - they gossip together. Old Adletsky has set feelings aside while he amassed his vast fortune. The old man is so apt that he divines the secrets behind Harry's mask, and brings him together with the one person Harry has loved dumbly for 40 years.
Amy Wustrin has not exactly stood apart from the sexual revolution while waiting for Harry to come wooing. Far from remaining the static object of his fantasy, she has moved about in the real world, from one marriage to another, from rich to broke, from hot high-school girl to correct matron. Still, in Amy, Harry sees what he calls his "actual". Harry has had his opportunities with Amy, but it is not until he finds himself at the cemetery with her for the exhumation and reburial of her husband that he feels free to speak out.
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I Love Laura Lippman
- By Joy on 07-15-11
By: Laura Lippman
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Baltimore Blues
- Tess Monaghan, Book 1
- By: Laura Lippman
- Narrated by: Deborah Hazlett
- Length: 9 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 1,502
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 1,202
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Story4 out of 5 stars 1,194
Unemployed at 29, Tess Monaghan is willing to take any freelance job to pay the rent—including a bit of unorthodox snooping for her rowing buddy, Darryl "Rock" Paxton. In a city where someone is murdered almost every day, attorney Michael Abramowitz's death should be just another statistic. But the slain lawyer's notoriety—and his noontime trysts with Rock's fiancée—make the case front page news...and point to Rock as the likely murderer. But trying to prove her friend's innocence could prove costly to Tess.
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4 out of 5 stars
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I'm on #8 - This series is almost unique
- By connie on 02-19-12
By: Laura Lippman
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Fifth Business
- The Deptford Trilogy, Book 1
- By: Robertson Davies
- Narrated by: Marc Vietor
- Length: 9 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 798
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 697
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 690
This first novel in The Deptford Trilogy introduces Ramsay, a man who returns from World War I decorated with the Victoria Cross but who is destined to be caught in a no man's land where memory, history, and myth collide. As we hear Ramsey tell his story, we begin to realize that, from childhood, he has influenced those around him in a perhaps mystical, perhaps pernicious way.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Been waiting for this
- By Vinity on 12-10-11
By: Robertson Davies
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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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Property
- Stories Between Two Novellas
- By: Lionel Shriver
- Narrated by: Lionel Shriver
- Length: 14 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 46
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 44
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Story4 out of 5 stars 43
A striking new collection of ten short stories and two novellas that explores the idea of property in every meaning of the word, from the acclaimed New York Times best-selling author of the National Book Award finalist So Much for That and the international best seller We Need to Talk About Kevin.
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2 out of 5 stars
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Painful and drawn out
- By JR on 06-27-18
By: Lionel Shriver
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The Immigrants
- By: Howard Fast
- Narrated by: full cast
- Length: 13 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 115
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 93
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 94
This is a love story of great beauty and great tenderness, the kind of love story that entangles the listener in the lives of the characters, so that after the story is over, one continues to live with those characters. And fortunately, the listener will not have to say farewell to these characters, since it is the first in a series that will tell the story of three Californian families over the course of the 20th century.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Narration style kills the story.
- By Glynis on 11-27-14
By: Howard Fast
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Mortal Friends
- By: Jane Stanton Hitchcock
- Narrated by: Jennifer Van Dyck
- Length: 12 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 238
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 193
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 191
When the latest victim of the "Beltway Basher" is found in the woods of Montrose Park, Reven Lynch's favorite jogging spot, her crime-loving antenna goes up. The murder makes Reven and her best friend, Violet Bolton, reconsider their running route - but that's not the only change in Reven's routine.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Kept me guessing
- By Anonymous User on 12-30-21
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In the Light of What We Know
- By: Zia Haider Rahman
- Narrated by: Ralph Lister
- Length: 21 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 90
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 82
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Story4 out of 5 stars 82
One September morning in 2008, an investment banker approaching forty, his career in collapse and his marriage unraveling, receives a surprise visitor at his West London townhouse. In the disheveled figure of a South Asian male carrying a backpack the banker recognizes a long-lost friend, a mathematics prodigy who disappeared years earlier under mysterious circumstances. The friend has resurfaced to make a confession of unsettling power.
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1 out of 5 stars
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dreadful
- By sam on 06-05-15
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The Patriots
- A Novel
- By: Sana Krasikov
- Narrated by: Suzanne Toren, George Guidall
- Length: 22 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 87
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 81
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Story4 out of 5 stars 78
Florence Fein grows up in Brooklyn in the 1930s, in a family that is gaining a foothold in the middle class. At City College she becomes engaged politically with the left-leaning student groups, and eventually, in the midst of the Depression, she takes a job with a trade organization that has a position for her in Moscow. There, she falls in love with another expatriate American and has a son. Soon after, Florence is sent to a work camp and her son to an orphanage.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Point of View of characters, past and present collide
- By Angela Adams on 01-29-19
By: Sana Krasikov
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The Fountainhead
- By: Ayn Rand
- Narrated by: Christopher Hurt
- Length: 32 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 13,901
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 11,575
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 11,599
One of the 20th century's most challenging novels of ideas, The Fountainhead champions the cause of individualism through the story of a gifted young architect who defies the tyranny of conventional public opinion. The struggle for personal integrity in a world that values conformity above creativity is powerfully illustrated through three characters: Howard Roarke, a genius; Gail Wynand, a newspaper mogul and self-made millionaire; and Dominique Francon, a devastating beauty.
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5 out of 5 stars
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The Fountainhead
- By Zachary on 06-04-10
By: Ayn Rand
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I Dreamed I Married Perry Mason
- A Cece Caruso Mystery
- By: Susan Kandel
- Narrated by: Dina Pearlman
- Length: 7 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 111
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 72
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Story4 out of 5 stars 72
All that writer Cece Caruso -- a 39-year-old former beauty queen from New Jersey -- really wants to do is finish her biography of Erle Stanley Gardner so that she can finally stop obsessing about Perry Mason. Well, that and find a 1970 silk chiffon Ossie Clark to add to her collection of vintage clothing. And fix the broken front doorknob on her West Hollywood bungalow. But first she has to help save her daughter's foundering marriage, which is more than Cece could manage for her own.
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4 out of 5 stars
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I Dreamed I Married Erle Stanley Gardner
- By phone it in on 01-30-12
By: Susan Kandel
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Ten North Frederick
- By: John O'Hara, Jonathan Dee - introduction
- Narrated by: Scott Aiello
- Length: 17 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 59
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 57
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 57
Joe Chapin led a storybook life. A successful small-town lawyer with a beautiful wife, two over-achieving children, and aspirations to be president, he seemed to have it all. But as his daughter looks back on his life, a different man emerges: one in conflict with his ambitious and shrewish wife, terrified that the misdeeds of his children will dash his political dreams, and in love with a model half his age.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Great story
- By Amazon Customer on 12-26-23
By: John O'Hara, and others
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Manhood for Amateurs
- The Pleasures and Regrets of a Husband, Father, and Son
- By: Michael Chabon
- Narrated by: Michael Chabon
- Length: 8 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 240
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 149
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Story4 out of 5 stars 149
As a devoted son, as a passionate husband, and above all as a father, Chabon's memories of childhood, of his parents' marriage and divorce, of moments of painful adolescent comedy and giddy encounters with the popular art and literature of his own youth, are like a theme played by the mad quartet of which he now finds himself co-conductor. At once dazzling, hilarious, and moving, Manhood for Amateurs is destined to become a classic.
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1 out of 5 stars
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Terrible
- By Ken on 10-14-09
By: Michael Chabon
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BUtterfield 8
- By: John O'Hara, Lorin Stein - introduction
- Narrated by: Gretchen Mol
- Length: 8 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 63
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 56
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Story4 out of 5 stars 57
A masterpiece of American fiction and a best seller upon its publication in 1935, BUtterfield 8 lays bare with brash honesty the unspoken and often shocking truths that lurked beneath the surface of a society still reeling from the effects of the Great Depression. One Sunday morning, Gloria wakes up in a stranger's apartment with nothing but a torn evening dress, stockings, and panties. When she steals a fur coat from the wardrobe to wear home, she unleashes a series of events that can only end in tragedy.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Wildly Uneven
- By David P on 08-27-15
By: John O'Hara, and others
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Bangkok 8
- By: John Burdett
- Narrated by: Paul Boehmer
- Length: 12 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 332
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 287
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Story4 out of 5 stars 287
Witnessed by a throng of gaping spectators, a charismatic Marine sergeant is murdered under a Bangkok bridge inside a bolted-shut Mercedes Benz. Among the witnesses are the only two cops in the city not on the take, but within moments one is murdered and his partner, Sonchai Jitpleecheep - a devout Buddhist and the son of a Thai bar girl and a long-gone Vietnam War G.I. - is hell-bent on wreaking revenge. On a vigilante mission to capture his partner’s murderer, Sonchai is begrudgingly paired with a beautiful FBI agent named Jones....
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2 out of 5 stars
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Very dissapointing
- By Dennis on 05-29-13
By: John Burdett